Two bodies have signed an agreement to advance sound procurement practices in Ghana.
They are the Ghana Institute of Procurement and Supply (GIPS) and auditing and consulting firm, KPMG Ghana,
The Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) seeks to foster greater collaboration between the two institutions and garner support from reputable organisations to push the procurement professionalisation agenda through the passage of the procurement practicing bill.
It comes at a time when the country is said to lose more than US$3 billion annually through procurement related irregularities.
Signing on behalf of the institute at the weekend in Accra, the President of GIPS, Simon Annan, FGIPS, said, “the importance of practicing law to regulate the profession can’t be overemphasised. When passed into law, the Procurement Practicing Bill will serve as a panacea for curbing procurement-related corruption and infractions.”
Socioeconomic development
He explained that the socioeconomic development agenda of Ghana cannot be achieved without the appreciation of the value of procurement in driving stakeholder value within the entire value chain, providing solutions tailored for dealing with societal issues such as systemic corruption, high-interest rate, price hikes and falling local currency.
He said globally, procurement, a sub-process of supply chain management, played an essential role in local and regional-wide industrialisation.
However, industrialisation can only occur in an enabling environment that included an attitudinal change in consumer behaviour, investment into infrastructure and regional cooperation.
“Therefore, this profession seeks to continue championing the good course, thus supporting the Government of Ghana’s budget execution, value for money, industrialisation, digitisation and local participation,” he added.
Mr Annan reiterated that the MoU shared a common vision and ideas regarding research, professionalisation and capacity building regarding the procurement and supply chain management discipline.
Growth of procurement function
The Head of Advisory Services, KPMG, Andy Akoto, who signed on behalf of the auditing firm, said his outfit was made aware that a bill for recognising the GIPS in the status of the country had been presented to Parliament for consideration.
He said the firm’s first area of assistance was to assess the Bill and make inputs to make it more effective in achieving the aims of the GIPS.
He said KPMG was going to be a knowledge, research and technical partner to help build capacity, collaborate on programmes and overall, help in bringing more professionalism to the growth of procurement function.
“Procurement constitutes over 70 per cent of government's expenditure so it becomes very important to us as a premier auditing and consulting firm to be associated with the GIPS to help bring their laudable objectives to birth on this economy.
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