The Public Procurement Authority (PPA) is expected to begin the implementation of an electronic monitoring process in the award of contracts and tenders by June 2017.
The authority has also set up a value for money audit team to undertake due diligence and value for money audit on all procurement processes before final approval is given.
The Vice-President, Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, made the disclosure when he paid an unannounced visit to the PPA offices last Thursday to familiarise himself with its operations and also have first-hand knowledge of any challenges the authority was facing.
Tackling corruption
Interacting with staff of the PPA, Vice- President Bawumia pointed out that one of the surest ways to tackle corruption in public offices was to tackle corruption in the procurement process.
Dr Bawumia explained that having an e-procurement procedure allowed members of the public to track any tendering and procurement application in real time.
“Starting in June, we are going to begin e-procurement, which means that every procurement process will have its own unique identification number. You can go to the website to know the stage of every procurement process,” he said.
The government, Dr Bawumia said, was happy with the development as it would be another effort to fight corruption.
Mandatory value-for-money audit
The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the PPA, Mr Agyenim Boateng Adjei, said the value for money audit would be mandatory for all, including companies that did not ordinarily submit their procurement processes to the PPA.
That, he said, was expected to help reduce corruption by increasing transparency in the tendering process, improving coordination between ministries and agencies to develop uniform standards and increasing competition among private sector firms for public sector contracts.
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