Procurement Planning Practices at Ghana Cocoa Board

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Date
2014-07-25
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Abstract
Multiple arguments against corruption backed by arguments for increased efficiency in the procurement systems in Ghana led to the legislation of the Public Procurement Act 663 in 2003 which became fully operational in 2004. Its main objective was the harmonization of the public procurement in the public service to secure a judicious, economic and efficient use of state resources in public procurement and ensure that public procurement is carried out in a fair, transparent and non-discriminatory manner. This study set out purposely to outline the institutional structures that exist at the Ghana Cocoa Board and to identify challenges confronting procurement planning. The findings of the study revealed that, the institutional structures for procurement planning at Ghana Cocoa Board were quite good. The entity has two departments responsible for procurement. The Procurement department is responsible for the procurement of goods while the General Services department is responsible for procuring works and services. It came to light that Ghana Cocoa Board has a Tender Committee and each of these two procuring departments forms a Tender Evaluation Panel when the need arises for tender evaluations to be done. It was further revealed that the makeup of these committees is in order. Further analysis showed that the persons at the helm of procurement planning have the requisite education to handle their jobs and therefore an appreciable level of competence to accompany their levels of education is expected. Some factors that emerged in the study as challenges to effective procurement planning include inadequate procurement officers, little education and training on procurement planning, poor understanding of the Public Procurement Act on the parts of both procurement personnel as well as staff of other departments partly contributing to yet another challenge – lack of cooperation from user departments. Political interferences with the procurement processes, insufficient funds and delays in the release of these funds, poor performance by some contractors and suppliers and poor contract management added to the challenges facing the entity. The study recommends that management of the entity should ensure that the procuring departments fully abide by all the stipulations of the Public Procurement Act 2003, (Act 663) to make the entity fully compliant. In addition, training programs and refresher courses should be organized on regular basis not only for procurement staff but also for staff of other departments as well to increase their knowledge and understanding of procurement procedures and to enhance cooperation from user departments.
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A thesis submitted to the School of Graduate Studies, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology in partial fulfilment of the requirement for the award of Master of Science degree in Procurement Management, June-2014
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