Treating corruption as a high-risk activity – Adwoa Safo

<! –

->

<! –

->

The Minister of Public Procurement urged anti-corruption actors to step up efforts to combat the threat by making it a high-risk activity.

According to Sarah Adwoa Safo, such an initiative will strengthen the country's procurement system, which has recorded higher percentages of malfeasance in the Auditor General's report on ministries, departments and agencies.

"I want to say that the Auditor General's report presents about 80% of her findings regarding procurement irregularities. This is very disturbing.

"To achieve 'Ghana Beyond Aid', we need to strengthen our procurement systems by making corruption a high-risk activity and punishing civil servants. This will dissuade many people, "she said Saturday in Koforidua, in the eastern region.

The Deputy Majority Leader spoke at a two-day workshop attended by House leaders and some House committees.

Representatives of committees such as finance, roads and transport, public works and housing, public accounts, health, local governments and rural development, communications as well as defense took part in the meeting. ;workshop.

The others are mining and energy, trade, tourism and education.

The theme of the workshop was "Improving Parliamentary Control through Public Procurement".

According to her, government procurement in Ghana represents roughly 70% of expenditures, which represents a portion of the country's total gross domestic product (GDP).

However, conflicts of interest, collusion and fraud pose a major threat to the judicious use of public funds, a situation highlighted by the member for Dome-Kwabya, which must be kept to a minimum, if it's totally eliminated.

Adwoa Safo added that Ghanaians should be alarmed by Transparency International's (TI) current report on Ghana, which reports corruption in all sectors of government and urged people to work to address it. to come up.

Despite this, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has said that corruption in procurement, collusion and fraud undermine development, should be a warning to all.

L-R: Adwoa Safo; Joe Osei Owusu, First Deputy Speaker of Parliament, and Haruna Iddrisu, Leader of the Minority.

The first Deputy Speaker of the Parliament, Joseph Osei Owusu, who made the keynote address, recalled a number of instances in which the country failed to block all the loopholes through which people earned the privilege. 39, money at the expense of the state.

He cited the Public Procurement Act 2003 (Act 663), which mandates every member of Parliament to sit on the board of the procurement entity of the Assembly.

However, this provision of the Public Procurement Act has been neglected, providing fertile ground for some actors in the procurement process to abuse the system.

Dishonesty

Dishonesty is another key issue in fighting corruption in the procurement process, says Osei Owusu.

"The biggest challenge we face as a country is how to manage our dishonesty. And that is what feeds all these discussions. I dare say that there is not a single person who does not know the rules or laws on public procurement – that this person applies as an entrepreneur or agent.

"If the rules are circumscribed and he wins the contract, he is a valuable man, but if he does not win, the person who won paid a bribe or the officer accepted a jar of wine. If that same officer bypbades the rule tomorrow and gets the contract, the story changes, "said the MP for Bekwai.

He added, "The worst thing is our political activists. He or she believes that because he is a party activist, he must automatically benefit from his party in power, regardless of whatever he wants, and yet he will turn around to accuse another of being corrupted when the things will turn around. We have to face it as a country, "he said.

Reforms

The leader of the minority, Haruna Iddrisu, said that to minimize corruption, the country had to undertake a number of reforms.

One of these reforms, he noted, is for legislators to change the way in which they evaluate the contract documents submitted to them for consideration and make recommendations to the plenary for approval.

Another reform, he suggested, is the issue of political interference and favoritism in awarding contracts.

"Mr. Speaker, today, one of the main weaknesses of Ghana's procurement law is political interference and political patronage." Today, if you are an NDC contractor, you have no business when the nuclear power plant makes a decision and when you are a plant contractor, you have no business when the NDC makes a decision. The essence of the Public Procurement Act was to provide for the judicious use of public resources to protect it in a non-discriminatory manner.

"Let anyone in this room dispute that our public procurement process is discriminatory and I say it without fear of contradiction. This must be corrected. That's why we can not develop businesses – your business wealth is tied to a political administration in power – it's a national wrong that we do as a country and we have to make an effort to see if we can correct it, "he said.

In addition, he said the delay in the payment of contractors and suppliers was a major setback in the procurement process, calling on the legislature to play a leading role in the fight against this phenomenon.