Gov’t: We’ve Sole-Sourced 232 Contracts; NDC Did 597 For 2016

Deputy Finance Minister, Kwaku Kwarteng, has told Parliament that 56 percent of all sole-sourced contracts that were presented to government was approved in 2017.

This is against the 95% of all such requests which were approved on sole sourcing basis in 2016 by the NDC government.

According to him, the reduction is due to government’s belief that moving away from sole-sourced contracts will protect the public purpose.

The Deputy Minister provided this answer in response to a question from MP for Bole Bamboi, Yusif Sulemana.

“In respect of sole sourcing, a total of 420 applications were received in 2017, of which 232 were approved, representing 56.19%. This again is significant improvement of 2016 sole-sourced applications of 622 of which 597 representing 95. 80 were approved.

“Given that the desired default procurement method is competitive tendering, the improvement in the choice of procurement method, away from sole sourcing under this NPP government is good for the public purse.”

A few months ago, President Nana Addo made a similar comment, indicating that government had saved a total of GHC 782 million from sole sourcing and restrictive tendering processes within its first year of government.

He was keen to note that this was in sharp contrast to the NDC's to the zero savings made from sole sourcing in 2016 under the National Democratic Congress.

IMANI disapproves claims
However, President for IMANI Africa, Franklin Cudjoe, subsequently downplayed the significance of a reduction in sole-sourced contracts, saying there was still a lack of transparency as far as citizens were concerned.

Despite President Akufo-Addo's assertions, Mr. Cudjoe expressed some misgivings with the fact that goods were still being sole-sourced as he asked “whether we would ever do anything significantly different from what we have seen in the past.”

“Even if there was 90 percent approval of sole sourcing under NDC and we now have 50 percent approval under the NPP, the point I am trying to make is that there is no basis for this kind of comparison because, first of all, we don't even get to see, as ordinary people, what exactly is being procured,” he said.

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