The Ghana Integrity Initiative (GII) has urged the government to ensure full compliance with the Public Financial Management Act (PFMA) and the Public Procurement Act (PPA) to safeguard all public funds and deliver value for money.

The GII made the appeal as part of this year’s 2022 AU Anti-Corruption Day celebration which was themed “Strategies and Mechanisms for the Transparent Management of Covid-19 Funds”.

According to the GII, whereas this AU Anti-Corruption Day was to provide member states an opportunity to assess their strategies and mechanisms for safeguarding Covid-19 funds; various corruption risks reports across the globe have revealed numerous procurement infractions

They noted that “evidence contained in studies conducted into corruption risk in public spending and infractions observed in statutory audit reports does not offer much comfort to the people of Africa.”

Specifically in Ghana, the Ghana Integrity Initiative noted that corruption risk assessments have revealed that there was inadequate transparency with regards to the procurement processes related to Covid-19 interventions rolled out by the government.

“The revelation of opacity in the procurement processes regarding the COVID-19 interventions was further compounded by inadequate publication and accessibility of procurement contracts by the people of Ghana,” the GII said in a press statement.

“While the situation was not unique to Ghana, the hardships which have ensued after the blatant abuse of public resources in the name of mitigating the effect of the pandemic on the people has left many questions than answers on the minds of Ghanaians,” it added.

It has thus recommended that government should ensure the full compliance of sections 79 and 80 of the Public Financial Management Act and Public Procurement Act to safeguard all public funds and deliver value for money.

It said, “Government should enforce Section 92 of the Procurement Act 663 (as amended) which speaks to contraventions and penalties relating to procurement in instances of violations, especially under emergency situations to serve as a deterrent to public officers who may want to take advantage of the system.

“The Public Procurement Authority (PPA) should ensure full compliance with the requirement in Section 44 (2) of the PPA Act that mandates Procurement Entities (PE) to place a public notice for comments from the public before any single source procurement is initiated

“The PPA should additionally develop regulations and guidelines concerning sole sourcing in Government procurement.

Also, “The Public Procurement Authority must ensure that all public procurement records are complete and accurate, and easily accessible to the public in a single file.”

It further called on Parliament to review the provision in Section 14 (3) of the PPA Act that vests power in the Minister of Finance to direct the use of a different procurement procedure where the Minister determines that it is in the “national interest” to do so as “current practices show this does not guarantee that the procedure will be in line with principles of economy, efficiency, and transparency.”

Finally “The Heads of the Civil and Local Government Services should see to the strict enforcement of the Code of Conduct for the Ghana Civil Service.”

The GII took the opportunity to commend all anti-corruption stakeholders in Ghana and across the continent “for their enormous efforts and called on them to use the Day as an opportunity to reflect and dialogue on the strategies and mechanisms taken on the transparency and accountability in the management of COVID-19 funds to ensure that these funds are used judiciously and solely for the purposes of which they have been released.”