A former senior official of Ghana’s public procurement regulator has dismissed the idea that the scale of sole-sourced contracts under the Big Push road programme reflects poor government planning, arguing instead that the awards represent a conscious policy choice by an administration that knew exactly what it was doing.
Kwame Prempeh, a former Deputy Chief Executive of the Public Procurement Authority (PPA), made the assessment on Saturday while speaking on Asaase Radio’s The Forum, as the controversy over 81 sole-sourced road contracts worth over GH¢73 billion continued to draw sharp public reaction.
Prempeh acknowledged that sole sourcing was lawful under Ghana’s Public Procurement Act, Act 663, in specific and narrow circumstances, including genuine emergencies, standardisation requirements, or situations where only one supplier exists. He noted, however, that state agencies had a long history of manufacturing artificial urgency by failing to plan adequately, thereby forcing the PPA to approve non-competitive procurement to prevent disruption to critical services.
But he was unequivocal that this standard explanation did not apply to the current situation. “No one can tell me… they came into power, knew that these things are there, knew what we can do to avoid these things. For me, it is deliberate,” he said, pointing to the fact that the Mahama administration entered office with a stated policy of minimising sole sourcing and had repeated that commitment publicly on multiple occasions.
President John Mahama pledged at his first State of the Nation Address (SONA) in February 2025 to minimise sole-source procurement in favour of competitive bidding, repeated the commitment at the National Economic Dialogue (NED) four days later, and reaffirmed it at the 2026 SONA in February, where he promised legislation to ban sole-sourced contracts except in exceptional circumstances.
Under Act 663, sole sourcing is permitted only in narrow circumstances, including when goods or services are exclusively available from a single provider or when an emergency makes other procurement methods impractical, subject to approval by the PPA. Prempeh’s argument was that a government fully aware of those rules, and publicly committed to working within them, had made a deliberate choice to use sole sourcing at scale regardless.
The Fourth Estate, using data obtained through Right to Information (RTI) requests to the Ghana Highways Authority (GHA), reported that approximately 76 percent of contracts awarded between September 2025 and February 2026 were through sole sourcing, with 81 sole-sourced contracts valued at more than GH¢73 billion. Roads and Highways Minister Kwame Governs Agbodza has contested the figures, telling Parliament that only 44 percent of major contracts under the programme were sole-sourced, and that more than 400 contracts were awarded through open competitive tendering.
Prempeh’s intervention adds expert regulatory weight to a debate that has drawn responses from Parliament, civil society, the opposition Minority, and IMANI Africa since the exposé was published on March 24.
