The Ghana Institute of Procurement and Supply (GIPS) is raising a critical condition for the success of the Value for Money (VFM) Office Act.
GIPS is making a strong case that there is an urgent need for the professionalisation of procurement if the government wants to see the success of the VFM Office.
According to GIPS President Simon Annan, the effectiveness of the new law will not depend on its wording alone, but on the people and processes behind procurement decisions.
Put simply, if procurement remains informal, inconsistent, or influenced by non-technical considerations, no amount of oversight will deliver real value for money.
The call by the Institute confirms that procurement in Ghana still faces gaps in skills, standards, and enforcement. In some cases, processes are not handled by fully trained professionals, while in others, compliance with existing rules is uneven.
This gap creates a fundamental gap and risk to the VFM Office. Even with the new VFM Office in place, the system it is supposed to monitor may not be strong enough to deliver the expected outcomes.
It becomes a case of trying to audit efficiency in a process that is not consistently efficient to begin with.
At its core, procurement is where public money meets real-world delivery, such as roads, schools, hospitals, and services. If that process is flawed, the consequences are immediate, which include inflated costs, delayed projects, and poor-quality outcomes.
For this, GIPS believes that you cannot demand value for money if the procurement system itself is not professionalised.
Rather than layering new oversight structures on top of existing weaknesses, the Institute is urging the government to fix the foundation.
This means ensuring procurement roles are handled by certified professionals and strengthening training and enforcement of standards.
“The implementation of the act is dependent on the professionalisation of the procurement processes in Ghana,” Simon Annan said in an interview monitored by The High Street Journal.
Without professionalising procurement, the Value for Money Office risks becoming a watchdog over a system that still needs fixing.
This means that in this case, the promise of better value for public spending could remain just that, a promise.
