President John Dramani Mahama has bemoaned the rate at which Ghana is ripped off by politicians through the award of single-sourced contracts.
Speaking at the opening of the National Economic Dialogue on Monday, March 3, 2025, the president indicated that single-sourced contracts have been used on several occasions to the detriment of the country.
He narrated an instance where, under the previous government, a company that manufactures a product was ignored by the government, and instead, a contract was awarded to someone else, who then bought the same product from the earlier company and made a profit of over GH¢21 million.
“Foreign single-source procurement must be the rare exception rather than the norm. We must also subject government projects above a certain threshold to value-for-money audits. And just this morning, I was reviewing some of the procurement reports, and there was this procurement for poultry farmers — 10,000 units of something — and it was single-source.
“The reason for single-source was urgency. And one company was given the contract to supply 10,000 units of whatever it was. The supplier and the person who assembles it were not allowed to bid. And so the company that won the contract went to the supplier, bought the items for GH¢4,500, and then sold them to the government for GH¢6,600, walking away with GH¢21 million on that supply,” he said.
President Mahama added, “How can you do this? If it was our own company we were running, would we do a thing like this? But that is government bleeding, everybody cutting their pound of flesh. That must stop.”
Watch videos of the president’s remarks at the National Economic Dialogue below:
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