African Games Audit: Sports Ministry awarded 55 unjustified single-sourced contracts worth over GHS2.7bilion

In the lead up to the 2023 All African Games, the Ministry of Youth and Sports, under former Minister Mustapha Ussif, awarded 55 single-sourced contracts worth over GHS2.7 billion without justification, according to the Auditor-General.

The contracts covered the building of sports infrastructure, provision of cleaning, catering and accommodation services; and the construction of access roads to sporting facilities.

Other contracts covered athletes’ transportation, anti-doping centers, and the production of medals for the games, among other things.

These unjustifiably awarded contracts are contained in the latest Auditor-General’s report on the games that were hosted in 2024 in Accra. According to the report, the contracts were granted in contravention to Section 40 of the Public Procurement Act.

The section indicates that for a contract to be single-sourced, the company must either have “exclusive rights with no reasonable substitute” to the product or service, and there must be “genuine urgency arising from unforeseeable circumstances not attributable to the procurement entity”, and the purchase must be due to “catastrophic events” or “standardization/compatibility considerations.”

Also, the report indicates that Regulation 36 of the Public Procurement Regulations (L.I. 2466) requires a single-sourced application to, at least, justify why a company has been handpicked for a contract, the cost estimates, and their reasonableness.

However, after assessing the 55 contracts, the Auditor-General concluded that they breached Ghana’s procurement laws.

“Contrary to the detailed statutory and guideline documentation required to justify single-source procurement, available records indicate that the MOYS/LOC submitted unjustified applications for three (3) EPC Contracts valued at GH¢ 2,343,277,844.88 and fifty-two (52) other contracts for works, goods, and services valued at GH¢ 363,789,842.60,” the report noted. “Thus, the MOYS/LOC awarded fifty-five (55) single-source contracts without adequate supporting documentation…”

Moreover, the auditors found that although value-for-money assessments were conducted for the three contracts worth GHS2.3 billion, they were done seven months after the contracts were approved by the Public Procurement Authority.

“Although the three (3) EPC Contracts were supported by a VfM Assessment conducted on 08 February 2022, the contracts were PPA-approved on 29 July 2021 and were all awarded in August 2022,” the report says. “Thus, the Value for Money Assessments were conducted 7 months after contract award, contrary to the statutory safeguards for single- source procurement methods.”

The three contracts include a sports infrastructure facility at Borteyman awarded to Contracta Construction UK Ltd worth GHS1.7 billion, other sporting infrastructure at the University of Ghana given to Consar Ltd that cost over GHS409 million and the refurbishment of the Legon Hostel Facilities by Avangarde-Ecobuild Consortium.

The details of the fifty-two other contracts are contained in the table below.