Accra, Nov. 25, GNA - Mr Martin Esson-Benjamin, Chief Executive Officer of the Millennium Development Authority (MiDA) on Wednesday expressed the need for procurement officers in the country to be given the requisite training to stay competitive.

He said the training would ensure that contracts were awarded to competent entities to push the country's development agenda forward. Mr Esson-Benjamin was addressing the closing session of a stakeholders conference that discussed the draft curricula and modules for medium and long term procurement training in Accra.

The participants, comprised members of the academia and regulatory bodies who validated the draft curricula and modules and came up with a workable modality to train students in tertiary institutions and procurement professionals.

He said MiDA as an institution established to administer the Millennium Challenge Account, had provided the Public Procurement Authority with 2.3 million dollars for the training of procurement professionals in the country.

Mr Esson-Benjamin the training was meant to ensure that procurement personnel in the public and private sectors were well-versed in proper procurement of goods and services.

He said the assistance was to sustain the momentum of growth in the rural areas and ensure that the right thing was done in any procurement transaction. Mr. Adjenim Boateng Adjei, Chief Executive Officer of the Public Procurement Authority (PPA), said it was heart-warming that after several years of conception of the idea, PPA now had a document, which stakeholders had discussed and validated for adoption by tertiary institutions for implementation.

He expressed the hope that by 2010 the polytechnics and universities would start running various courses leading to the award of internationally recognised certificates, degrees and diplomas. The draft proposes a three month intensive training targeted at procurement practitioners in the public sector who did not posses any professional qualification.

Holders of Higher National Diploma are supposed to under go about 15-24 months intensive training in procurement to acquire a Bachelor's Degree. 25 Nov. 09