The erstwhile Mahama administration abused procurement laws in order to siphon state funds, Minister of State at the Presidency in charge of Public Procurement, Adwoa Safo, has said.

According to her, the procurement policy is the single “most abused policy ever introduced by government” and “we are aware of how the previous government unjustifiably took advantage of sole-sourcing, a method under the law, to loot state money”.

She explained that by the method, several contracts were awarded to cronies and families resulting in “dubiously inflated contract costs for purposes of creating, looting and sharing”.

The Member of Parliament (MP) for Dome Kwabenya made this known at a training session on Public Procurement for Ministries and Agencies in Accra on Monday, May 29.

She observed that the purpose of the exercise was to sanitise government procedures, making it more transparent and “less prone to corruption which hitherto had bedevilled the government procurement processes”.

She emphasised that under the leadership of President Akufo-Addo, appropriate steps would be implemented to prevent the wanton use of sole-sourcing to award contracts.