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The Governing Council of the Takoradi Polytechnic may have queries to respond to when its members eventually appear before the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) to consider the 2012 audited reports of public institutions.

This is based on the fact that the polytechnic engaged in sole sourcing and in disregard of the Public Procurement Act (PPA) amongst others.

The Auditor General’s Report (AGR), covering the year 2012, has cited the Takoradi Polytechnic for gross mismanagement, excess expenditure without recourse to laid down rules among other unprofessional expenditures.

One specific example of overblown expenditure is how the school spent a huge sum of GH¢304,041.82 on foreign travels, as against an approved sum of GH¢7,140 earlier approved by the House of Parliament for polytechnic institutions to use in embarking on foreign travels.

The House of Parliament, from 2010-2012, approved a total sum of GH¢7,140 for Polytechnic Rector and senior management members of the school to use in embarking on foreign travels.

However, the Rector and senior management of the Takoradi Polytechnic rather decided to spend beyond the sum approved by Parliament. This development is likely to attract the wrath of Kweku Agyemang Manu, head of the PAC, when it sits next year to consider the 2012 audited reports of public institutions.

Another area the PAC may raise questions and query the authorities of the polytechnic is how it side-stepped the PPA to engage in sole sourcing for the building of a Ghana Education Trust Fund (GETFund) hostel for the school.

The AGR had unveiled how the school paid a sum of GH¢95,591.48 to a sole-sourced company, Mike-Run on Time Engineering, for the renovation of a GETFund hostel.

“When requested, the Procurement Unit failed to produce for audit the procurement documents relating to the contract. As a result, were not able to form an opinion on whether the transaction was carried out in line with the PPA.

“Even though management later presented some documents to us, the documents did not include any evidence that the procurement process was followed in awarding the contract.”

The report further pointed out that “we were of the opinion that Run on Time Engineering was sole-sourced to execute the contract without approval of the Public Procurement Board.”

The report also faulted the management of the school for failing to comply with the PPA, which required entities to purchase goods using national competitive tendering, where the value of the goods was more than GH¢20,000 and up to GH¢200,000.

In this case, the Takoradi Polytechnic, according to the AGR, the purchase of goods at a total cost of GH¢108,330.45 was done in gross disregard of the PPA.

“We noted that management did not advertise the procurement of the underlisted items amounting to GH¢108,330.45 in the national newspapers or in the procurement bulletin. That apart, management obtained price quotations instead of using the national competitive tendering method as required by law. This, in our view, was done intentionally and in complete disregard of the law.”

Another blatant disregard of the PPA was how the AGR exposed that the school authorities engaged in single source procurements of textiles amounting to GH¢75,400.

“We noted that management awarded a contract to Premium Textiles to supply 1,300 cloth worth GH¢75,400 using the single source procurement method without approval from the Public Procurement Board in contravention of section 40(1a) of the PPA.”