Vice President Bawumia(right), interacting with some government officials after the opening ceremony.Photo.Ebo Gorman (2)
As part of efforts to curb corruption and abuse of procurement processes in public offices, a special training programme has commenced in Accra, to build the capacity of government ministers and public officials on the essential provisions of the Public Procurement Law.
The purpose of the six-day training programme, according to Vice President Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, who opened it yesterday, is to ensure that procurement mistakes of the past are not repeated under the current government.
The Vice President observed that the tenure of the previous government was berated with allegations of abuse of the procurement process, especially the over-reliance on the sole sourcing approach and indicated that the current administration would not allow such procurement anomalies to aggravate.
“The rules and regulations on public procurement in Ghana have been occasionally floated by government appointees and public servants who are supposed to be the great custodians of the procurement law,” he said.
He said the confidence reposed in the President Akufo-Addo administration meant that Ghanaians expected the government to tackle corruption head-on, and indicated that the government was desirous of managing the country on the right footing.
In addition to the training on the Public Procurement Law, he said the participants would also be educated on the Public Financial Management Law as well as the budget preparation processes.
Dr. Bawumia commended the Public Procurement Authority for introducing interventions such as the establishment of the new Due Diligence Unit, Procurement Audit Unit under the leadership of its current Chief Executive, Mr. A.B Adjei.
“I challenge you to rise above the rhetoric and focus on greater performance that will deliver broader national development outcomes for our dear country,” he said.
The Minister of Finance, Ken Ofori-Atta, said the country could make tremendous savings through concerted efforts to strengthen its procurement functions by strict enforcement of fiscal discipline and improved revenue generation.
“Public procurement is a key economic and political activity of all governments. Besides being a simple act of purchasing, it is a development tool, translating development finance into development outcomes, thus, the ability of our political leaders to accomplish their promises of economic and social improvements is closely related to how effective their procurement functions are”.
“It is therefore our hope that the special training session and the subsequent ones planned to be rolled out for the regional ministers and chief executives of MMDA’s across the country in the coming months will go a long way to augment our efforts at consolidating the gains of previous capacity building initiatives and create the needed awareness on the provisions of the Public Procurement and Public Financial Management Laws,” he said.
By Yaw Kyei
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