Leveraging on Electronic Procurement to Reduce Corruption in Public Procurement in Ghana

Public Procurement and its attendant challenges and risk factors have become a dominant and topical national issue. They have triggered debates from political, religious, and civil society groupings and Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs). The protagonist, among the numerous seemingly unsurmountable challenges and risks, is the umbilical cord that ties it closely, securely, and firmly to corruption. There is a turbocharger connecting public procurement and corruption. For several years, Africa has been associated with the menace of poverty, with its key driving force being corruption in public procurement. Attempts have been made by the Ghanaian legislative body to introduce and amend existing legislation to address the canker, but much is yet to be achieved. Streamlining public procurement practices and processes has benefits such as cost savings, speed of operations, improved efficiency and ultimately, eliminating or reducing corruption to an appreciable acceptable level. Factors, which militate against achieving such desired benefits include poor attitude of staff, deliberate attempts by politicians to frustrate the process, lack of staff with the requisite technological skills and less developed information technological infrastructure. Procurement has become a bane for corruption because it involves huge transactional costs, has complex processes and unnecessary delays in the payment process. Sustainable, training and monitoring are some of the tools deployed to ensure e-procurement works effectively. The primary focus of this paper is to explore and analyse why measures at curbing corruption in public procurement have not yielded the desired outcome and to offer solutions.