Disregard for President’s vow for prudence: Ministry awards 81 sole-sourced contracts worth over GHS73 billion in 7 months

During his first State of the Nation Address (SONA) on February 27, 2025, President John Mahama pledged to prioritise Ghana’s infrastructure to address the “pressing backlog of poor roads.” He announced the “Big Push” programme as the flagship initiative to deliver the promise.

He vowed his government, unlike previous ones, would do things differently in the award of contracts under the Big Push programme. The President promised that his government will “Minimise sole-source procurement to encourage competitive bidding and enhance public transparency in procurement processes.”

Four days later, the President made this vow again while addressing the National Economic Dialogue (NED) in Accra. He described the excessive abuse of sole-sourcing of public sector contracts as an act that leads to inflated contracts and causes a major drain on the country’s finances. 

“Single-source procurement must be the rare exception rather than the norm,” President Mahama said. 

One year into his administration, he remained committed to his vow, at least in words. At the 2026 SONA, he repeated his vow and commitment to ending the practice of excessive and unjustified awards of government contracts through sole-sourcing.

“Mr Speaker, we are bringing legislation to this House to tighten our procurement processes by banning sole-sourced contracts, except in exceptional circumstances,” the President told Parliament.

The promise to stop the abuse of sole-source procurement is one that President Mahama and his governing NDC party have been making since they were in opposition.

In the 2020 People’s Manifesto, the NDC pledged to “make single-sourced procurement (sole-sourcing) an exception and not the rule.” The pledge was repeated in the 2024 Reset Agenda Manifesto.

But in what appears to be a bold and complete disregard and defiance of the President’s vow and promises to the nation, the Ministry of Roads and Highways has literally become a factory for sole-sourced road contracts. The Ministry has been churning out what translates into almost 12 sole-sourced contracts per month.

Data available to The Fourth Estate indicates that in the last seven months, the ministry has awarded 107 road contracts. Contrary to the President’s promise to ensure competitiveness and transparency in the awarding of public contracts, not a single one of 107 contracts was awarded based on competitive tendering.

A whopping 81 out of the 107 road contracts worth over GHS73 billion were awarded through sole-sourcing. The remaining 26 contracts worth about GHS8 billion were awarded through selective tendering. This means over 90% of the amount of money expected to be spent on roads under the Big Push programme so far was given out through sole-sourcing.

Despite this glaring contrast, the majority leader and leader of government business in Parliament, Mahama Ayariga, audaciously proclaimed to Parliament on March 11, 2026, that “let it be known, the era of the sole-sourced contract is dead.”

Minister’s response

When asked how contracts under the Big Push programme were awarded, the Minister of Roads and Highways, Kwame Governs Agbodza, said they resorted largely to selective tendering.

“Contracts were procured predominantly through restrictive tendering to ensure rapid project commencement,” he said. “Before procurement, the Ministry and agencies conducted extensive engineering studies, including feasibility studies and seal of quality and commitment authorisation for each project.”

Mr Agbodza’s claim that the contracts were mainly awarded through restrictive tendering, however, is counter to data obtained from his Ministry and the Ghana Highway Authority. The data available to The Fourth Estate, obtained through Right to Information (RTI) requests, reveals that about 76% of the contracts awarded from September 2025 to January 2026 were through sole-sourcing. 

The Minister does not believe that the manner in which the contracts have been awarded contradicts his party’s avowed position of avoiding the abuse of sole-sourcing.

“Contracting under the Big Push fully aligns with the National Democratic Congress (NDC) manifesto and government policy. Public contracts are awarded to competent, experienced, and well-resourced contractors, prioritising Ghanaian firms to build local capacity,” he said.

It is instructive to note that, while in opposition and serving as the Ranking Member of Parliament’s Roads and Transport Committee, Mr Agbodza was an ardent critic of sole-sourcing of road contracts.

In 2021, he addressed a major press conference on the issue of sole-sourcing and proclaimed: “Part of the reason why the government is unable to build more roads is because of the use of sole-sourcing in the award of road projects, [which] inflates the cost of such contracts.”

What the Public Procurement Law says

Ghana’s public procurement law (Act 663) frowns on the regular and unjustified use of sole-sourcing or single-source procurement. It only permits it under exceptional circumstances.

Section 40 (1) of the law prescribes exceptional cases to include circumstances where goods, works, or services are only available from a particular supplier or contractor who has exclusive rights to them.

The law also makes room for sole-sourcing only when there is an urgent need for the goods, works, or services during catastrophic moments or emergencies during which using other procurement methods would be impractical.

Many, therefore, wonder the circumstances that justify the overwhelming resort to sole-sourcing in the award of road projects under the Big Push initiative.

Civil society leaders react

Multiple civil society leaders who spoke to The Fourth Estate condemned the ministry’s over-reliance on the sole-sourcing as it undermines transparency and value for money, and betrays the President’s promises.

Mary Addah, Executive Director of Transparency International Ghana, bemoaned that despite the existence of a law and a procurement authority, public officers continue to flout procurement rules.

“It’s sad, and the double standards are just too many. And it’s becoming worrisome for those of us who do this on a daily basis.  It’s sad that people who stand on the pulpit to say one thing carry on and do other things.”

She added that these breaches continue to happen because public officers believe they will not be penalised when they do it.

The Executive Director of the Africa Centre for Energy Policy, Ben Boakye, shared similar views, noting that the findings were not what Ghanaians were promised.

He said it has become obvious that those in charge now did not condemn sole-sourcing in the past out of concern for the public interest, but because they were not the decision-makers and beneficiaries at the time; now, they are benefiting from it.

Imani Africa’s president, Franklin Cudjoe, decried that it had become increasingly clear that the current public procurement system is a major revenue leakage point for the government.

“We know the integrity of the procurement process has been compromised by weak institutional and regulatory frameworks, inefficient quality assurance measures, and a cultural tolerance for abuse and unethical behaviour of public officials,” he said.

 “We were hoping that these abuses were going to be curtailed in this new reset agenda. With these dizzying numbers, we are lost.”

Anti-corruption crusader Vitus Azeem told The Fourth Estate that it was disappointing to see that the findings contradict President Mahama’s pledge in the State of the Nation Address to introduce legislation that reduces sole-sourcing.

Mr Azeem noted that “it’s surprising that just one year into power, such situations exist. Because, you see, the procurement law talks of competitive bidding. And sole-sourcing or restricted bidding is not a norm.”

NDC’s past rhetoric on sole-sourcing

While in opposition, some leading members of the NDC deplored the Akufo-Addo administration’s abuse of sole-sourcing.

In May 2024, MP for North Tongu, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, now Foreign Affairs Minister, said Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia had engaged in “deplorable conduct” on the allegation that a contract had been awarded to a company said to belong to the former Vice President’s siblings on a sole-source basis.

Sammy Gyamfi, CEO of GoldBod, who was then the National Communications Officer of the NDC, reiterated Agboza’s concern that inflated sole-sourcing contracts were causing Ghana to lose billions of cedis. He made this claim in one of his moments of truth series on TV in August 2024.

A year into the Mahama administration, the government’s sole-sourcing record in the road sector alone shows the government may be copying from the very script NDC officials criticised and condemned.