Mr Sam Achampong, the Regional Head of Middle East, North and West Africa of the CIPS, said this would ensure that procurement professionals had the appropriate qualification to manage their function properly and optimise the use of resources.

He said licensing professionals would imply that there would be consequences to serve as deterrent to poor performance and unethical practices; as this had massive exponential effect on society.

Mr Achampong made the remarks in Accra in an interview with the Ghana News Agency on the side-lines of an executive breakfast meeting, hosted by CIPS on the theme: “Building a Global Procurement Centre of Excellence”.

Among the key objectives of the meeting was to meet top policy makers in Ghana to introduce and expose them to global concepts, trends and evolution of procurement. Mr Achampong noted that in as much the licensure would also help fight against corruption, the reputation of procurement was actually key to attracting foreign investments.

He said corruption added 10 per cent to the cost of doing business and 25 per cent to public procurement in developing countries.He said the key challenges were to start mandating professional procurement at the very highest level, even though Ghana had a lot of good commitment of doing procurement in the right way.

"However, from the very top, we needed to start mandating professional procurement practices from the top to the lowest level of procurement to ensure that there were no more perceptions of misappropriation of funds," he said.

Mr Kwaku Kwarteng, a Deputy Minister of Finance, also underscored the need for Ghana to move towards standardising projects. He said seeing similar projects procured by different procurement entities with varied prices implied that some procurements were better in terms of value for money than others.

Mr Kwarteng stated that the way to correct the situation was for a proper study to be carried and to declare the price specifications for the particular projects and associate that with quality assurance mechanisms. He explained that in the end we could be sure that procurement entities did not have the freedom to procure at any price they wish and hopefully that should address some of the value for money concerns.

The Deputy Minister noted that with regards to public procurement, there was a certain excuse that entities do not get paid early after supplying to the Government and, therefore, up the price to cater for inflation.

He indicated that it was government’s responsibility to ensure that “we only procure projects and goods and services for which we have money.”  Mr Kwarteng said this would help the process of cleaning up the public finance management environment. Mrs Stella Addo, the Country Manager of CIPS, Ghana, noted that procurement in Ghana had gradually come to the limelight, and was gradually being understood, accepted, and recognised as a strategic function than the traditional tactical role of just preparation of tender documents and award of contracts.

She said the adaptation of modernised procurement systems and pursuance to new trends in procurement would go a long way to assist the country’s procurement agenda. “Also, when proper supervision is conducted, procurement activities will shift from its perceived corrupt nature to become efficient and effective in Ghana,” she added.

Among the dignitaries at the meeting were Mrs Sarah Adwoa Safo, Minister of State in-charge of Public Procurement, Nana Kwasi Agyekum Dwamena, Head of Civil Service and Mr Agyenim Boateng Adjei, Chief Executive Officer of Public Procurement Authority.