A management consultant and procurement specialist, Kobina Ata-Bedu, has criticised the newly passed Value for Money Office law, arguing that it duplicates existing legal responsibilities and risks creating confusion within Ghana’s public financial management system.

Speaking on JoyNews Newsfile on 28 March, Ata-Bedu contended that current legislation, particularly the Public Financial Management Act and the Public Procurement Act, already assigns clear responsibility for ensuring value for money in public spending.

“If you take the Public Financial Management Act, there are specific roles that are identified, and they are given specific objectives. Now there is somebody called the spending officer; that spending officer is the same person who is referred to as the head of the entity in the Procurement Act. In both instances, that person is the one with responsibility for ensuring there is value for money,” he said.

He argued that, given these existing provisions, the introduction of a new office is unnecessary.

“So, the bottom line is this: it’s a useless act that is only going to create confusion, because the obligations and the responsibilities are already established in several laws,” he stated.

According to Ata-Bedu, the challenge lies not in the absence of laws but in their failure to be enforced effectively.

“All we have to do is make them work, and when they are not working, all those laws have clauses in them for contraventions and for penalties. Why are we not applying the contraventions and the penalties?” he queried.