Ghana urged to embrace Sustainable Public Procurement
Mr Samuel Sallas-Mensah, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Public Procurement Authority (PPA) has appealed to government and procurement practitioners to embrace and implement Sustainable Public Procurement (SPP) policy.
He said SPP factored economic, social and environmental impacts in procurement decision making which would ensure effective sustainable development.
The CEO was speaking at an opening session of a five-day pilot training for procurement practitioners on SPP in Koforidua on Monday,
Mr Sallas-Mensah also called on the government to provide scaled up demand for sustainable goods, services and works which would serve as a market signal to encourage the private sector to invest diversify and deliver sustainable goods and services to meet such demands.
The CEO said when the SPP was adhered to environmental management skills, corporate social responsibility, cleaner production, pollution prevention services would increase.
“Waste management and economic use of resources are some obvious challenges we face and sustainable public procurement can help address them to a large extent,” he said.
Mr Sallas-Mensah said the SPP makes room for increased participation of women entrepreneurs in government procurement processes which would be a boost for national economic growth and for their immediate families as well as their communities.
“A policy that seeks to improve incomes for women businesses through government contracts is a wise one and must be embraced since it results in poverty alleviation and wealth creation,” he said.
Mr Sallas-Mensah appealed to the government to set aside a percentage of all its contracts for Small Scale and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) to enable Women-Owned Small Businesses (WOSBs) to have a quota.
In her welcoming address, Nadia Balgoben, the Swiss Representative, implored Ghana’s policy makers and procurement practitioners to take the training serious and make it a point to implement the SPP policy for the country to attain full sustainable development.
Mr John Afari Idan, CEO of Biogas Technologies Africa Limited, reminded the participants of the need to understand that their role in public procurement is not all about buying but adding value to what they buy.
The pilot training is a collaborative effort between the Government of the Swiss, to train procurement practitioners and policy makers in the public sector in order to strengthen their monitoring and evaluation capabilities which would in turn foster sustainable development.
Source: GNA