Duffuor Covers Up NDC 'Chop-Chop'

The Minster for Finance and Economic Planing, Dr. Kwabena Duffour, has for the last three years turned a blind eye on a section of the Public Procurement Act that enjoins him to submit annual reports to Parliament on public procurement activities in the country.

This arrangement has been put in place to ensure proper accountability and transparency in the awards of public contracts.

Many contracts awarded under the National Democratic Congress (NDC) government are done through sole-sourcing, a practice which is very susceptible to corruption through inflated contractors costs.

Even though the previous New Patriotic Party (NPP) government appointed technocrats to head the Public Procurement Authority, the situation is now different under the NDC where the Chairman of the Authority is a presidential staffer, whilst the Chief Executive Officer is a former NDC MP.

Section 13 of the Public Procurement Act (Act 663) states: “The [Public Procurement] Board shall within three months after the end of each year, submit to the minister [of Finance] a written report indicating the activities and operations of the Board in respect of the preceding year”.

It adds: “The annual report shall include a copy of the audited accounts together with the Auditor-General's report and the minister shall as soon as practicable receipt of the annual report submit the report to parliament with such comment as the minister considers necessary”.

Information available to the New Statesman indicates that even though the Public Procurement Board has been submitting its annual reports to the Finance and Economic Planning Minister, he has failed to make them available to Parliament for the required scrutiny to be done on how the public purse is being spent on procurements.

Insiders say leading functionaries of the Mahama-Amissah-Arthur led National Democratic Congress government have been prevailing on the minister not to submit the reports to Parliament, for fear of exposing the alleged corrupt deals of the government in respect of awards of contracts, especially the highly inflated nature of the costs involved.

Many well-meaning Ghanaians and groups, including the New Patriotic Party (NPP) and its Presidential Candidate Nana Akufo-Addo, have been expressing much worry about the contract sums of projects being executed by the NDC government.