Sole sourcing procurement – You can’t challenge figures: Prez Akufo-Addo

President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has reiterated for the umpteenth time, the tragic danger facing the nation as it continues to churn out thousands of jobless youths and says the trend needs to be bucked.

“The growing story of youth unemployment has been a tragic part of our lives for far too long. When I became President therefore, I knew my work was cut out. We had to do things differently if we were going to banish this spectre of desperation and restore hope to our youths.”

He said this at the second encounter with the media at the flagstaff house in Accra on Wednesday.

He said the new government had no choice but to do things differently, after from inheriting a distressed economy choked by debts and with macroeconomic indicators in disarray.

Doing things differently, his said, were his marching orders to all members of the government to rapidly go and grow the economy, which also required that the fundamentals should be in place.

The economic management team, he said, rose to the challenge and demonstrated that doing things differently produced positive results.

Illustrating the benefits of the approach, he said a better management of procurement in the administration over the last year, relative to the John Dramani Mahama-led National Democratic Congress government era, has yielded results that cannot be disputed.

“In the year 2016, the Public Procurement Authority had 622 sole source requests, 577 of that number, 98 percent were approved and there were 25 rejections. There were 592 requests made for restricted tenders, and 587 (99.15%) were approved and there were five rejections. A grand total of zero savings was made through the procurement process.

“In 2017, our first year in government, 394 sole sourcing requests were made out of which 223, i.e. 56.6% were approved, and 171, (43.6%) were rejected. There were 346 requests for restricted tenders, and 167 (48%) were approved and 179 (52%) were rejected.

“Now here is the interesting part. The savings made over the year, as a result, amounted to 145 million cedis, 142 million dollars, 1.8 million euros and 22,400 pound sterling. As my old Mathematiccs teacher used to say, you cannot argue with figures and such figures surely provide the incentive to open up government procurement.”