Ghana needs professional procurement practitioners to salvage the country from corrupt practices in its economic transactions, said Chairman of the Advisory Board of the Chartered Institute of Procurement and Supply-Africa, Prof. Douglas Boateng.
“Sometimes it is not corruption but inefficiency in the system caused by lack of procurement professionals to engage in national and international economic transactions on behalf of the state,” he said in a speech at the second annual awards and dinner of the Chartered Institute of Procurement and Supply (CIPS) in Accra.
Prof. Boateng consequently called for a review of the existing [Ghanaian] legislation, especially Act 633 on procurement to bring it in tune with current demands.
The theme for the event was, ‘Procurement and Supply Chain Professionals: raising our game; raising our voice towards national development’.
Prof. Boateng explained that procurement was not about engaging in bargaining, but negotiating professionally, which must be done in all economic transactions.
He noted that contrary to that, it was common for people who engaged in buying and selling to claim to be procurement practitioners and that was what bred inefficiencies in the system.
Challenge
The challenge of the country, Prof. Boateng said, was lack of human capital in the procurement sector resulting in an influx of quack practitioners in the system.
He said negotiation involved a detailed assessment of transactions and noted that the country was engaged in only buying things without considering the price, assessing what to buy and who to buy from, among other things.
Awards
As part of the event, deserving individuals and companies were presented with awards.
For the industrial awards, three companies were acknowledged for adhering to procurement laws in their transactions.
They were the Graphic Communications Group Limited; Ghana Civil Aviation Authority and MTN Ghana.
In the individual category, the Managing Director of Zoom Alliance and former Chief Executive of the Public Procurement Authority, Mr Agyeman Adjei Boateng; the Director, Procurement and Supply Chain Class at the Civil Service, Dr Tett Afotey Walters and the CEO of the Public Procurement Authority, Mr Sallas Mensah, were honoured in the gold category while an academic, Professor Douglas Boateng, received the platinum life-time award of CIPS.
Graphic Online
Image courtesy of Graphic Online
