The Public Procurement Authority (PPA) on Tuesday debunked media reports that the Authority had signed a GH¢97 million contract for the development of e-Government Procurement system.

Addressing the media in Accra to explain the issues, Mr Agyenim Boateng Adjei, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the PPA, said the information was totally false and a complete misrepresentation of facts and figures.

He said the total allocation for the e-Government Procurement (e-GP system), which was being implemented by the PPA and funded by the World Bank under the e-Transform Project, was five million dollars out of which 1.775,084.24 million dollars had been committed to the first phase of implementation.

He gave the assurance that the Authority would prudently manage the resources entrusted to it so as to fully accomplish its objectives to enhance efficiency and transparency in the procurement processes.

Explaining the facts of the contract, Mr Adjei said due to the nation’s quest to bridge the digital divide in its service delivery from manual to electronic system, the PPA obtained financial support from the World Bank, under the e-Ghana Project, to implement the e-Government Procurement system in 2011.

This led to the engagement of the Price Water House Coopers as consultants in 2012 for the effective implementation of the project, he said. However, he said, the project was suspended when the e-Ghana Project came to a close in 2012.

Therefore, the Government, upon further consultations, made a proposal to the World Bank for a continuation of the e-Ghana Project (renamed e-Transform Project) and other initiatives in September 2013, to support the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) agenda.

The objective of the e-Transform Project is to improve the efficiency and coverage of government service delivery using ICT and improve the reach and efficiency of public and private service delivery through smart use of ICT. It is also meant to eliminate human elements and corruption in the procurement processes, strengthen transparency and increase compliance with policy as well as access to procurement information and lower transaction cost to suppliers.

Mr Adjei said the proposal was successfully appraised by the World Bank, and on July 30, 2014, a financing agreement was signed between the Government of Ghana and the World Bank to support the implementation of the e-Transform Project at the cost of 97 million dollars for four broad sub-components.

The components are creating an enabling environment for electronic government and business, support for upgrading national identification and online verification services, scale-up applications to improve service delivery in priority sectors and project management and impact evaluation. Mr Adjei explained that it was under component three, that is; scale-up applications to improve service delivery in priority sectors, which the PPA was implementing the e-Government Procurement System, at the cost of five million dollars.

Under this component, he said, the PPA was to engage an application service provider, undertake sensitisation and training programmes, and roll-out expenses and other service costs.

In that regard, he said, an international competitive tendering process for the selection of an application service provider was opened, for which six companies submitted bids, but the European Dynamics of Greece, was eventually selected.

He said the Greece Information Technology solution firm was awarded a contract in June, 2017, to provide an application for the implementation of the e-Government Procurement in Ghana for the first phase within a period of two years.

Mr Adjei presented the cost component of the contract, signed with European Dynamics as follows: Contract sum (US$1, 510,710.00), VAT and Taxes (US$ 264,374.25), Total Contract Sum (US$ 1, 775, 08.25).

He added that the local component for the contract execution included Data Centre Services to be provided by NITA to host the application software at the cost of GH¢846,866.68.

He said there were other sub-components of the e-Transform Project namely; e-Parliament (US$3.5 million), e-Justice (US$ 5 million) and e-Immigration (US$15 million), which would be implemented by their respective institutions.

Mr Adjei said the Ministry of Communications was hosting and facilitating the entire e-Transform Project, while the PPA was implementing one out of the four sub-components.