This follows a call by the Member of Parliament for Bawku Central, Mahama Ayariga on government to totally scrap sole-sourcing following the sentencing of a former GYEEDA boss, Abuga Pele and a businessman, Philip Assibit.

According to Ayariga, awarding all government contracts through competitive bidding processes will help check corruption which is usually associated with sole sourcing.

[contextly_sidebar id=”Z5PfKvng1DdIt5Dzl7166GwOqgqx1GIx”]But the President of GIPS, Collins Agyemang Sarpong, told Citi News the solution to curbing corruption within the procurement process is to tighten the approval process.

“One thing that we know is that procurement people need to have what we call ethical compass. If you are an officer and a request comes, you need to be able to dissect it. It’s like somebody waiting the whole year and in September, you come to me and say we are going to do single source because it is under certificate of emergency while it had been in your plan since January. Even when you look at the procurement plan, people will put in it single source in January but the item will be bought in September and it is in their procurement plan.”

“Why can’t you start doing the process so that by September you will get your items. What I’m driving at is that people who are in positions of authority should always trigger their ethical compass and not just approve things because they want to approve it to favour any businessman or because they’ve gone for something and they are approving. We think that people should be able to question some of these things. That is why there is an authority; go to PPA for them to access the request before they give you the approval or denial,” he added.

Abuga Pele, Assibit jailed 

Abuga Pele, the former National Coordinator of the Ghana Youth Employment and Entrepreneurial Agency (GYEEDA), was sentenced alongside the Chief Executive Officer of Goodwill International Group, Philip Assibit, to a combined jail-term of 18 years on various counts, including willfully causing financial loss to the state.

In the scandal that hit the now Youth Employment Agency (YEA), some companies including Zoomlion Ghana Limited, RLG, Asongtaba Cottage Industry Limited and Better Ghana Management Services Limited, among others were contracted to render services under various modules for the GYEEDA programme.

It subsequently emerged that monies were paid to these companies who were awarded the contracts through sole sourcing for no work done.

223 sole sourcing contracts were approved in 2017 

President Nana Akufo-Addo during the 2018 State of the Nation Address in Parliament disclosed that his government awarded 233 contracts on sole sourcing basis.

He added his government saved about GHc800 million in the process as compared to the NDC government.

“In 2016, the Public Procurement Authority had six hundred and twenty-two (622) Sole Source Requests. Five hundred and ninety seven (597) of that number, 98%, were approved, and there were 25 Rejections. There were five hundred and ninety-two (592) Requests made for Restricted Tenders, and five hundred and eighty seven (587) (99.15%) were approved, and there were five (5) Rejections. A grand total of zero savings was made.”

“In 2017, my first year in office, three hundred and ninety four (394) Sole Sourcing Requests were made, out of which two hundred and twenty three (223) (56.6%) were approved, and one hundred and seventy one (171) (43.4%) rejected. There were three hundred and forty six (346) Requests for Restricted Tenders, out of which one hundred and sixty seven (167) (48%) were approved, and one hundred and seventy nine (179) (52%) rejected. Now here is the interesting part. The savings, made over the year as a result, amounted to some GH¢800 million,” he added.

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By: Godwin Akweiteh Allotey/citifmonline.com/Ghana
Follow @AlloteyGodwin

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