‘Embrace new GHANEPS to check corruption’

 Public and private enti­ties have been urged to embrace the new Ghana Electronic Procurement System (GHANEPS) in order to check corruption and enhance efficien­cy in the procurement system of the country.

The Deputy Director, Capacity Development of Public Pro­curement Authority (PPA), Mr Andrew Baafi, who announced this indicated that by the end of this year, GHANEPS would be the only way to conduct public procurement in Ghana.

He was speaking at a five-day training workshop for 63 pro­curement officers drawn from the 12 district and municipal assemblies of the Bono Region on Friday.

Also attending was a 13-mem­ber delegation from the Gambia Public Procurement Authority to understudy Ghana’s PPA system.

According to the Bank, the electronic procurement system had the capacity to improve the government’s ability to generate data and analyse performance in capital budget spending in real-time, thereby increasing transparency in government procurement.

Mr Baafi said the introduction of GHANEPS otherwise known as e-GP, and implemented in different phases in 2019 had engaged over 750 public entities from 13 regions across the coun­try, adding “they are in various stages of roll out.”

According to him 176 training sessions had been organised for the entities with over 6,000 of their staff including 3,018 pro­curement officers taking part.

For the private sector he said 96 training sessions had been organised with 3,029 companies participating.

“There have been over 1,500 tenders posted through the system so far, with 2,070 suppli­ers responding to them and an average of 18 suppliers per ten­der. The tenders have led to 97 framework agreements and 1,101 awarded contracts with a value of GH¢72, 480,311.80. In terms of users 712 entities have been set up on the system with 6,796 users. There are also 24,435 suppliers registered on the system,” he stated.

Mr Baafi said the GHANEPS team would be training management, oth­er procurement officers, entity staff and service providers.

The Gambia Resource Manager of PPA, Aliu Yusupha Kah, in a remark said the knowledge gained from the training would go a long way to help to enhance the Gambian PPA system.

He commended the World Bank for sponsoring the training which according to him had ex­posed him to new ways of doing things in respect of procurement.

 FROM DANIEL DZIRASAH SUNYANI