As Ghana continues to record new cases of COVID-19, the Public Procurement Authority (PPA), is urging both government and private institutions to adopt the electronic procurement system, which was launched and implemented by the government in 2019.
According to the PPA, the e-procurement platform, which is aimed at reducing human interface in the procurement processes has become necessary especially in this Covid-19 era to help reduce the spread of the virus.
The Head of Corporate Affairs at PPA, David Damoah, who spoke to Citi News on the sidelines of a visit by a delegation from the Gambia Public Procurement Authority to learn best practices from the Koforidua Technical University on e-procurement, called on all institutions to help the government reduce the spread of Covid-19 by using the e-procurement platform.
“We realise that Covid has its own challenges, and e-procurement has come at the right time where we don’t have to all converge at one place, either to tender opening documents or tender evaluation documents, and all the other things that the manual system comes with.”
“With e-procurement, all the players in the procurement process sit at the comfort of their offices and go on the system and play the role that they are supposed to play. The tender opening is done online, and we don’t have to converge at one place.”
“The tender evaluation is done online, we all have to be in our offices. So we realise that, that meeting or gathering at one place, which is not convenient especially in the time we find ourselves. We realise that e-procurement is the best thing for us now, so we want all public and private institutions in the country to adopt this system to help reduce the spread of Covid-19 in the country”.
Managers of the Koforidua Technical University who have fully implemented the e-procurement system say the system has improved transparency and reduced lobbying which encourages corruption.
Prof. David Kofi Essumang, the Vice-Chancellor of the Koforidua Technical University, said the e-procurement system is timely.
“The system came at the right time, we didn’t know it was coming to help us, but it came at the right time, and we are using it fully as an institution.”
