No warrant for payments without procurement plans –Terkper

Finance Minister, Seth Terkper has warned that Ministries, Department and Agencies (MDAs) will not receive payments from the Ministry of Finance if their expenditures are not contained in the procurement plans of the respective procurement entities in 2015.

“My Ministry will -with effect -from next year- ensure that no warrant for payments are issued unless such expenditures are duly captured and aligned with procurement plans,” Mr. Terkper said.

Expenditures are duly captured and aligned with procurement plans,” Mr. Terkper said.

He further explicate: “In other words, if any capital expenditure is not properly incorporated into the procurement plans of Procurement Entities then it has no basis for payment.” He stressed that the measure was in line with the strategies of achieving macro-economic stability.

The strategies, he noted, include ensuring fiscal discipline that hinges on public expenditure management; enhancing domestic revenue mobilisation mainly through the ongoing reforms at the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) that involve the revision of all direct and indirect tax laws; and public sector reforms, with particular emphasis on right-sizing the public service. The others are reclassification of and improvement in public debt management; and encouraging the private sector to participate in the government's accelerated growth agenda through public private partnerships (PPPs), including improvements in downstream energy and power distribution projects.

Mr. Terkper made these statements at the 6th annual public forum and 10th anniversary celebration of the Public Procurement Authority (PPA) held in Accra last Thursday. The event was held on the theme 'Extending the Frontiers of Ghana's Public Procurement Management: A Look at the Next Decade.” He relaunched the website of the PPA.

He said it was heart-warming that the proposed amendments to the Public Procurement Act, 2004 (Act 663) had received the Cabinet's approval and the Bill was gazetted and was on its way to be laid before Parliament. He said the Ministry would continue to support initiatives of the PPA aimed at ensuring that public procurement was conducted with due attention to the economy, efficiency and value for money. “To the Public Procurement Entities which are the implementers of the Act, I would want to encourage you to collaborate closely with the PPA, and avail yourself of the numerous tailored training opportunities that the Authority puts across from time to time to develop institutional capacity for procurement. This is the surest means of enhancing your performance levels and ensuring better accountability of the State's resources,” he said.

Commodore Steve Obimpeh (Rtd.), chairperson of the PPA governing board, observed that the years of the Authority's operations were without some challenges. “I must concede that this 10 years' journey has not been without some notable difficulties such as the use of inappropriate alternative procurement procedures, for example bulk breaking; non-compliance with requirements of procurement planning and bad contract management, among others.”

Commodore Obimpeh said the challenges were, however, dealt with satisfactorily. “These difficulties have been surmounted considerably. The Authority has chalked significant success in areas of capacity development by training over 20,000 procurement functionaries across the country, monitoring and evaluation by conducting major assessment exercises for over 1,000 procurement entities nationwide.” He lauded the PPA management for hosting public regulatory institutions from Botswana, Liberia, Nigeria and Tanzania.

The Chief Executive Officer of the PPA, Mr. Samuel Sallas-Mensah, said the $2.7 million sustainable public procurement project took off with establishment of the Ghana Taskforce and various sensitization programmes. “The PPA with the support of the World Bank has for the past two years commenced the implementation of the electronic government procurement (e-GP) project,” Mr. Sallas-Mensah said.