Assessment of Public Procurement Policy Implementation in the Educational Sector (A Case Study of Takoradi Polytechnic)

Public Procurement Act 663 of 2003 has experienced a number of reviews and amendments since independence and have mostly been characterised by huge contractual payment arrears, corruption, delay in delivery of contracts, unsustainable foreign debts and excessive budget deficits. To address these and many other challenges, the Ghana Public Procurement Act 663 (2003) was promulgated and assented on 31st December, 2003. Ten years down the line, compliance has become a major challenge in the implementation of the Act among public institutions in Ghana. This precipitated the conduct of this study to find out whether Takoradi Polytechnic fully complies with the provisions of the Act, and if so, are there any challenges that inhibit the smooth implementation of procurement activities. Subject to the nature of the population and the field of study, descriptive survey design was adopted for the study with questionnaires and semi-structured interview as the main data collection instruments. The findings of the study proved that Takoradi Polytechnic uses the Ghana Public Procurement 2003 (Act 663) in its procurement of goods, works and services from suppliers through the established Procurement Unit of the Institution. However there are some major challenges such as excessive bureaucracy, cumbersome documentation processing, inadequate storage facilities and others and it is incumbent on the Public Procurement Authority to intervene to curtail some of the challenges even as the Polytechnic performs certain internal interventions to counter such challenges in the procurement cycle.