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.
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