The Minister of State in-charge of Public Procurement, Sarah Adwoa Safo, has visited her counterpart, the Minister of Education, Dr. Matthew Opoku Prempeh, popularly called Napo, to assess the procurement process for the free Senior High School (SHS) policy.
Ms Safo, after thoroughly studying the processes, commended Dr. Opoku Prempeh, for strictly adhering to the procurement laws in the implementation of the free Senior High School (SHS) policy.
The legislator said owing to the components that constitute free SHS, she noticed that the programme was going to be laden with a lot of procurement activities.
In order not to flout the procurement regulations, I decided to pay a working visit on Monday to learn at first-hand the kind of procurement methods being used and to advise accordingly, she added.
The free SHS initiative is an important government flagship programme, which has attracted diverse opinions and now that it is to be implemented in few weeks, it does not need any further controversies, especially regarding the procurement processes, she added.
She used the opportunity to advise Dr. Opoku Prempeh and his team to be mindful of a new directive from cabinet to seek its approval of any procurement that exceeds the GH₵50million threshold.
The Public Procurement Minister used the occasion to inform the Education Minister and his team about some of the government policies she was implementing to strengthen the country’s procurement system to ensure value for money.
For instance, she said in order to strengthen the capacities of local contractors, the government has made a policy whereby 70% of all its contracts or projects shall be awarded to local contractors.
Out of this 70%, 30% of the contracts or projects shall be awarded to Persons With Disability (PWDs), women and those in youth employment.
She told Napo and his team about efforts her ministry was putting in place to get the two existing Public Procurement Act (Act 663) and Public Procurement (Amended) Act (Act 914) harmonized for easy reading and referencing.
On his part, Dr. Matthew Opoku Prempeh, expressed his outfit’s appreciation to Adwoa Safo for the visit and noted that the government’s flagship free SHS policy would be implemented with in accordance with the laws of the land.
He said the policy, which would ensure equity, quality and employable skills, would be rolled out in three weeks’ time and was optimistic that its successful implementation would inure to the benefit of all.
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