The Chamber of Suppliers’ Development and Diversity (CSDD), a chamber for private contractors and suppliers of public goods and services, in collaboration with procurement consultancy firm, ProSupp Consult, has organized a one-day capacity-building training on competitive tendering procedures for its members at the Coconut Grove Regency Hotel in Accra.

The workshop equipped participants with the requisite documentation and bargaining skills to enable them secure government contracts, and to execute them in the manner that ensures efficiency and value for money.

About 30 participants, comprising of practitioners, individual business owners and procurement professionals drawn from the construction, information technology, general supply and printing sectors across the country took part in the informative and expertise sharing session.

An associate consultant for the chamber, Mr. Dennis Teye-Adjei, told journalists that the training workshop was to groom its pool of members to become competent and ready tenderers for government works and contracts.

He said: “This is a chamber to empower the private sector to secure contracts on merit by resourcing them with the right requirements for government goods and services.”

According to Mr. Teye-Adjei, building expertise in the sourcing from the public space would ensure competition, fairness and equal access to securing government goods and services.

“If the private sector is capacitated to get more money, they can grow and diversify their business, create employment and contribute to national development,” he added.

Facilitator for the workshop, Mr. Kwame Oppong, emphasizing the need for the training, highlighted that about 60-70 percent of tenders from private suppliers do not get to the evaluation stage because of issues relating to improper documentation.

“We have observed as practitioners that most contractors and suppliers lose out on public tenders not on the basis of pricing but the mere fact that their documentations do not offer the right competition.

This training was to equip participants with the requisite knowledge about the competitive tendering procedure and how they can prepare tender documents to meet the expectation of clients, and ultimately secure government contracts for goods and services,” he said.

One of the participants, Mrs. Dorcas Asiedu, who owns a facility management, fumigation and landscaping firm, Docantree Limited, told journalists that she was greatly empowered by the training.

“This training has been very informational and beneficial, especially for business owners like myself that secure contracts through competitive tendering. Personally, I’ve learned that it’s all about documentation, without which one could have the best bid price and still not secure any contracts. I recommend this session to both public and private sector actors who are into tendering and want to become very competitive and professional,” she indicated.

Another participant, Mrs. Dorcas Felicity Brown, who is head of procurement for the Greater Accra Regional Hospital, shared her experience, highlighting the need for professionals to constantly build on their capacity as procurement people.

“As a practitioner, I believe strongly that capacity building is very important that’s why I signed up for this training; I’ve learned so much about the right documentation procedures in the bidding for public goods and services,” she noted.

She added: “In all, it’s been an educative and open-minded session that has opened me up to the new things about competitive tendering and I’ll recommend this training to all practitioners and tenderers who want to build their competence in their chosen profession.”