Anti-graft agencies and civil society organisations
(CSOs) have petitioned the Finance Minister for further and better particulars
on the over GH¢2bn reportedly saved through the review of sole-sourced and
restrictive tendering contracts.
He has since not provided details on the
contracts on specific procurement savings that were made on but the anti-graft agencies
and CSOs have asked for full list of contracts from which savings were made.
Ken Ofori-Atta, the Finance Minister delivering
2019 mid-year budget review in Parliament announced GH¢2.75 billion had been
saved through scrutiny of sole-sourced contracts as well as contracts awarded
through restrictive tendering.
Sulemana Braimah, the Executive Secretary of the
Media Foundation for West Africa, one of the petitioners, said making such
information public would be instructive and provide guidance in future
procurement applications.
“The biggest challenge when it comes to
corruption is public procurement, if the government has consistently maintained
as a result of prudent measures adopted, savings made of billions of Ghana Cedis,
it is important the government gives information to the public.
“We will all appreciate the government is
making effort towards ensuring value for money in procurement, if information
is put out, learn from it, going forward be guided by what the government is
doing since Public Procurement Authority (PPA), in April 2019 announced within
the period of April 2017 and December 2018, has saved economy monies of GH¢1.9
billion,” Mr Braimah stated.
The president had claimed his government had
saved a total of GH¢2.75 billion from review of sole-sourced procurement
contracts in spite of recent happenings at PPA, GH¢2.75 billion has been saved
for public exchequer from January 2017 to July 2019 as a result of reviewing
contracts brought before it for approval either under sole-sourcing or
restrictive tendering procedures.
But the claim has been challenged by a number of
people including the National Democratic Congress who trashed all claims made
by the president and submitted that the claim was false and challenged him to
publish the full list of specific cases of savings. -citinewsroom.com