Government committed to making public and local service attractive – Minister
Government remains committed to making the public and Local Government service the most attractive to engage and retain qualified officers to achieve the Better Ghana agenda.
Mr Haruna Iddrisu, Minister of Communication, made the pledge when he launched the newly developed scheme of service for procurement officers in Accra.
A press release copied to the Ghana News Agency in Accra on Wednesday said the Minister tasked the Public Services Commission to work in collaboration with the Public
Procurement Authority (PPA) to comply with the scheme of service regarding the recruitment, training, placement, promotion, posting and all other category of officers.
He cautioned that migration of officers to their appropriate levels with the introduction of the new scheme must be done diligently to avoid any industrial unrest.
Over the years, public procurement management in the public service had been faced with a number of capacity challenges, a situation which had been further aggravated with the additional responsibilities for procurement management as detailed in the Public Procurement Act, 2003(Act 663), he noted.
The Act provides for the establishment of procurement units (to manage procurement activities) in all entities and to be staffed with persons proficient in procurement.
The Minister indicated that to attract and retain qualified procurement professionals in the public service, the PPA under its capacity development policy had identified the need for the establishment of a procurement cadre in the public service (including the Civil and Local Government Services) as existed for the other professionals.
He said to fill this gap, the PPA as part of its medium and long term capacity development with support from the Millennium Development Authority (MiDA), had pioneered the development of Curricula and Modules as well as lecture notes on procurement to be taught at various tertiary institutions to produce a pool of human resource that would ensure efficient use of State resources in the practice of public procurement in the country.
These curricula and modules were, the three to six months intensive course which has been advertised to be run by the Ghana Telecom University College and the Management, Development and Productivity Institute (MDPI), he added.
He said other tertiary institutions billed to begin the course were the Zenith University College, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration and Central University College.
The Schemes of Service for the Information Technology/Information Management (IT/MI) professionals and Internal Auditors within the Public Service were also launched.
Source: GNA