The National Communications Officer of the National Democratic Congress, Sammy Gyamfi, has defended the government’s decision to use sole-sourcing for some major road projects, insisting the process was lawful and justified by urgency.
In a statement posted on his Facebook page, the NDC’s communications director said that the poor state of roads across the country posed a major national security threat, citing frequent road accidents and related security concerns as reasons urgent action was required.
The Goldbod CEO said the surveying, design and costing of the government’s “Big Push” road projects alone took about seven months, and warned that relying solely on the National Competitive Tendering process would have further delayed the projects and possibly pushed their completion beyond 2028.
He explained that Section 40 of the Public Procurement Act allows for single-source procurement under conditions such as urgency, subject to approval by the Public Procurement Authority.
According to him, all the road contracts awarded through sole-sourcing received the required approval.
The NDC communications officer also rejected claims made in a report by The Fourth Estate that the contracts were unjustified or inflated. He said the publication had not provided evidence of any breach of the law or inflated project costs.
Mr. Gyamfi further argued that the NDC had never opposed sole-sourcing as a procurement method but had only criticised what it described as its abuse under the previous New Patriotic Party administration.
He added that some of the projects cited, including a number of major roads under the “Big Push” programme, were originally awarded by the previous government and were only continued by the current administration after securing funding.
According to him, the contracts were awarded to multiple experienced contractors and payments were based on work certified by independent consultants.
He maintained that the use of sole-sourcing in the case of the road projects was justified and should not be compared to previous cases the party had criticised while in opposition.
Source :www.kumasimail.com
