Evaluating the public procurement act 2003(act 663) as amended as a tool for fighting corruption in public entities in Ghana
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Date
2021-07-07
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Abstract
Corruption in public procurement has become a canker that every government seeks to
eradicate. The Public Procurement Act, 2003, (Act 663) was enacted and further amended to
strengthen the weak procurement systems that bedevilled the economy. With the passage of
the Office of the Special Prosecutor Act, 2017, (Act 959) Ghana seeks to bring corruption
down to its knees. The study examined the effectiveness of the Public Procurement Act in
combating corruption in public procurement procedures amongst State Owned Enterprises.
The objectives of the study were to determine significant corrupt practices within Ghanaian
public procurement entities when procuring, to analyse critical causes of corruption in public
procurement entities in Ghana and to assess the negative effects of corruption on public
procurement in Ghana. A case study research strategy was used for this study with a
structured questionnaire to collect data from the procurement units of some selected State
Owned Enterprises using the purposive approach. The significant corrupt practices found are
procurement corruption during bid evaluation and limiting the number of competitors. The
study revealed political influence; desire for wealth and greed of contractors as the critical
causes of corruption in State Owned Enterprises with loss of confidence in public officials;
increase in public expenditure; diversion of government revenue, negatively affects the
economic growth of the country, breeds impunity and dilution of public integrity; impaired
quality service delivery; increased cost of doing business; and unnecessarily limits access to
public services as important negative ramifications of corruption in public procurement in
State Owned Enterprises. In spite of the rich anti-corruption provisions in the Act corruption
still exists in public procurement. It is therefore recommended that Act 663 as amended is
religiously adhered to and activities of procurement units regularly monitored and sanctioned
Description
A thesis submitted to the Department of Construction Technology and Management, College of Art Built Environment in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the Degree of Master of Science.
Keywords
Public procurement, Corruption, Public Entities, State Owned Enterprises, Ghana, the Public Procurement Act.