Parliament amends Public Procurement Act
Parliament has amended the Public Procurement Act, 2003 (Act 663). A statement signed by the Chief Executive Officer of the Public Procurement Authority, Mr Samuel Sallas-Mensah, said the Act was amended to propel public procurement to a second generation of reform and help to streamline the bottlenecks identified after a decade of implementing it.
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“We wish, therefore, to inform the procurement entities, procurement officers/practitioners, civil society organisations, service providers and the general public to take note of the passage of the bill,” it added.
Some inclusions
The statement said the amendments had re-categorised government institutions to include some organisations that were initially not covered.
It said the thresholds had also been increased across board and procurement entities reconstituted to ensure efficient administration of the increased thresholds.
“Provision has been made to accommodate decentralised procurement, in line with the government’s decentralisation policy. The amendment addresses other administrative challenges and introduces enabling provisions for policy initiatives such as sustainable public procurement, framework contracting and electronic procurement,” it added.
Key feature
The statement said a key feature of the amended act is that it seeks to address local content policy issues in the infrastructure, economic and social services sectors and the upward review of the entity tender committee approval threshold for works, from its current level to GH¢15,000,000 for institutions falling under Categories A and B of the amendments.
“Finally, to reduce administrative costs and enhance efficiency, all tender review boards with the exception of the Central Tender Review Board will be dissolved. Ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) will continue to seek concurrent approval from the Central Tender Review Committee, while the metropolitan, municipal and district assemblies (MMDAs) will use the newly created Regional Tender Review Committee,” it said.
It also said procurement entities were being reminded that the amendments would not take effect until they had been signed by the President of the Republic of Ghana.
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It added that the authority would subsequently announce the implementation details as soon as the amendments received the President’s assent. PARLIAMENT has amended the Public Procurement Act, 2003 (Act 663). A statement signed by the Chief Executive Officer of the Public Procurement Authority, Mr Samuel Sallas-Mensah, said the Act was amended to propel public procurement to a second generation of reform and help to streamline the bottlenecks identified after a decade of implementing it.
“We wish, therefore, to inform the procurement entities, procurement officers/practitioners, civil society organisations, service providers and the general public to take note of the passage of the bill,” it added.
Some inclusions
The statement said the amendments had re-categorised government institutions to include some organisations that were initially not covered.
It said the thresholds had also been increased across board and procurement entities reconstituted to ensure efficient administration of the increased thresholds.
“Provision has been made to accommodate decentralised procurement, in line with the government’s decentralisation policy. The amendment addresses other administrative challenges and introduces enabling provisions for policy initiatives such as sustainable public procurement, framework contracting and electronic procurement,” it added.
Key feature
The statement said a key feature of the amended act is that it seeks to address local content policy issues in the infrastructure, economic and social services sectors and the upward review of the entity tender committee approval threshold for works, from its current level to GH¢15,000,000 for institutions falling under Categories A and B of the amendments.
“Finally, to reduce administrative costs and enhance efficiency, all tender review boards with the exception of the Central Tender Review Board will be dissolved. Ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) will continue to seek concurrent approval from the Central Tender Review Committee, while the metropolitan, municipal and district assemblies (MMDAs) will use the newly created Regional Tender Review Committee,” it said.
It also said procurement entities were being reminded that the amendments would not take effect until they had been signed by the President of the Republic of Ghana.
It added that the authority would subsequently announce the implementation details as soon as the amendments received the President’s assent.