Public procurement goes digital 2023 — PPA
From October 2023, contracts and procurements to be awarded by all the 660 public entities in the country will have to pass through the Ghana Electronic Procurement System (GHANEPS).
This new system is to help eradicate all forms of inefficiencies and malpractices associated with the manual system of public procurement.
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The Acting Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Public Procurement Authority (PPA), Mr Frank Mante, disclosed this at the closing session of a three-week E-procurement training workshop for management and procurement officers in the Eastern Region at Koforidua last Wednesday.
He said already, a number of public entities had been rolled onto the new system.
The exercise was being done in phases with the corresponding training to ensure successful implementation by the last quarter of 2023, he said.
Mr Mante said the country would then be the first in West Africa to establish an electronic procurement system which would curb irregularities and unnecessary costs in the procurement process.
That would enable the country to reap all the benefits associated with the e-system of procurements and contracts, the PPA CEO said.
Mr Mante indicated that GHANEPS could tackle malpractices of cartel formations in procurements in the manual system.
Transparency, restoration
Mr Mante stated that the new system would ensure transparency and restoration of public confidence in the public procurement system, while saving funds for development.
The CEO of the PPA said since the process was cumbersome, a help desk had been provided to support entities and suppliers when required to go through with procurements and contracts with ease.
Check eligibility
Further more, Mr Mante said the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) and the Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT) had been integrated into the e-system to check the eligibility of companies partaking in public tenders in respect of their compliance of payment of taxes and social security for their employees.
He also intimated that the Ghana Integrated Financial Management Information System (GIFMIS ) had been hooked onto the new system to pass on information to ease and facilitate the swift payment to entities that were on the GIFMIS.
Mr Mante commended the Koforidua Technical University for the role it was playing for the success of the new change and presented it with a certificate of excellence in GHANEPS.
For his part, the Eastern Regional Minister, Mr Seth Kwame Acheampong, who was happy about the new procurement system, said the participants had already acquired the requisite knowledge on electronic procurement system to enable the procurement officers throughout the country to apply it.
He said the face of public procurement had changed and the process had also begun through transparent procurement processes.
All procurement plans, Mr Acheampong stated, were going to be prepared online, the creation of tenders for invitation was now paperless as well as the conduct of contract administration and management to ensure value for money was achieved.
"The onus now lies on you as participants to go out into your various institutions to make this positive change in your procurement process a reality.
“You are now the pioneers and game changers for this country when it comes to public procurement processes. It is my hope that as you embrace this new development, the regions and mother Ghana as a whole will benefit,” the regional minister said.