High spending state-owned institutions, the Ghana Cocoa Board (Cocobod), the Volta River Authority (VRA), Ghana Health Service, Tema Metropolitan Assembly (TMA) and the Koforidua Technical University, are to be connected to the Electronic Government Procurement Platform (EGP) by November.

According to the Deputy CEO at the Public Procurement Authority (PPA), Kwame Prempeh, the EGP system is meant to enhance and make government procurement more efficient.

“We are now in the training phase, we are training six entities who will be going live in November and after that we will roll on more entities. We are doing a six month pilot phase, even though we are starting with six, we will end the pilot phase with 46, so after two months, we start rolling on 10 every month, so by the end of the pilot phase we have 46 on it,” he told B&FT in an interview on the margins of the 6th Procurement and Supply Chain Management Summit in Accra.

He also added that apart from the six entities that will be going live in November, the target is to have a minimum of 600 entities by the end of 2020.

The idea is to make all government procurement electronic, he noted, which will enhance competition among suppliers, ensure transparency, and value for money.

On his part, the Acting Director And Head Of Procurement, Civil Service, Ebenezer Essilfie Baiden stated that: “This is to ensure that we do paperless procurement, all other things being equal, that is the essence of this programme, so we educate both practitioners in the public sector and the private sector, to acquire knowledge as far as the subject matter is concerned and to create awareness of the fact that very soon, the PPA is going to roll out the EGP into full force.

As of today we are in the piloting phase, where a couple of agencies have been selected to pilot the application to see how it works and as key actors in the value chain, it is important that we do this programme to create awareness.”

Background

The Procurement and Supply Chain Summit is one of the flagship programmes that the procurement and supply chain management of the civil service organises every year and the theme this year was: ‘Electronic Government Procurement as a tool for effective public procurement’.

The summit is also aimed at educating both practitioners in the public sector and the private sector, to acquire knowledge as far as the electronic government procurement is concerned and to create awareness of the fact that very soon, the PPA will be rolling out the EGP into full force.

Government is championing the agenda of ensuring that the civil service do more electronic public service than manual public service that they are used to.

Piloting of the project among high spending institutions started in July this year. One of the pillars within the electronic public service delivery is electronic procurement.