Amendment of Procurement Act ensures massive shake up

The amendments have also re-categorised government institutions to include organisations not initially covered, and  thresholds have been increased across board.

Additionally, Procurement Entities have been re-constituted to ensure efficient administration of the increased thresholds.

In a statement released by the Public Procurement Authority and copied to Pulse Business said:

“The Public Procurement Act, 2003 (Act 663) which was passed in 2003 and came into operation in 2004 as part of government’s public financial management reforms had to be amended to propel public procurement into a second generation of reform and to streamline bottlenecks identified over a decade of implementation.”

The statement said provision had been made to accommodate decentralised procurement, in line with government’s decentralization policy.

The amendments address other administrative challenges, and introduced enabling provisions for policy initiatives such as Sustainable Public Procurement, Framework Contracting and Electronic Procurement.

In addressing local content policy in the infrastructure, economic and social services sectors (in particular for roads and energy), the amendment has ensured the upward review of the Entity Tender Committee approval threshold for Works, from its current level to GH¢15, 000,000 (Fifteen Million Ghana Cedis), among other things, for institutions falling under Categories A and B of the Amendments.

Finally, the statement said, to reduce administrative costs and enhance efficiency, would be dissolved.  Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) would continue to seek concurrent approval from the Central Tender Review Committee, and the Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDAs) would use the newly created Regional Tender Review Committee.