Procurement breaches amounting to over GHȻ 8 million uncovered at GPHA-2020 Auditor General’s repor

According to the report, the Management of the GPHA failed to provide the Auditor General’s office with documents for seven transactions during its review.

Is allowance instantly strangers applauded

The Ghana Ports and Harbours Authority(GPHA) has been cited in the 2020 Auditor General’s report for breaching Section 28 of the Public Procurement Act 2003.

According to the report, the Management of the GPHA failed to provide the Auditor General’s office with documents for seven transactions during its review.

The amount involved in the above seven transactions total GHȻ 1,827, 453.31.

Management of the GPHA has therefore been urged to make available the transaction documents for review failure of which officers involved will be held liable for the said amount.

Also, management of the GPHA  through the Evaluation Committee recommended PKF Scientific Limited to supply a chemistry analyzer at a contract sum of GHȻ 248, 246.87.

However, the above contract was awarded to a non-tenderer, DCL at a sum of GHȻ 276, 674.27.

The Auditor-General has therefore recommended the additional cost in the contract in the sum of GHȻ 23,427.40 to be refunded by the Director-General, Director of Finance, and AG. Director in charge of Procurement at the GPHA, who authorized the transactions. This is due to the fact that their collective negligence led to the payment of the additional cost.

In a similar fashion, the AG’s report notes that management of the Authority engaged in a restricted tendering amounting to the sum of GHȻ 1, 193,398.67 without prior approval from the Board of the  Public Procurement Authority(PPA).

Therefore the Auditor General per its report has recommended the sanctioning of the management pursuant to Section 92 of the Public Procurement Act, 2003(Act 663) as amended.

In conclusion, a request by the audit team of the Auditor General’s office to review GPHA’s contract document was not honoured by management. Therefore the report recommends the retrieval of the above documents from the management, failure of which sanctions should be taken against it for financial indiscipline, pursuant to Section 8 of the Public Financial Management Act(PFM Act), 2016.