Ghana’s newly passed Value for Money Office Act is facing professional pushback before it even reaches the President’s desk, with the country’s leading procurement body warning that the law risks creating bureaucratic confusion rather than the accountability it was designed to deliver.
The Ghana Institute of Procurement and Supply (GIPS) has submitted a formal petition to the Finance Ministry and Parliament’s Finance Committee, calling for the Act to be reviewed and harmonised with existing legislation before full implementation proceeds.
GIPS President Simon Annan said a comparative analysis conducted by the Institute revealed that the objectives of the Value for Money (VFM) Act overlap significantly with those already enshrined in the Public Procurement Act (PPA). Both frameworks, he argued, are designed to ensure efficiency, effectiveness, and value for money in the use of public funds, raising the question of why a separate institutional structure is needed to achieve the same ends.
The concern extends beyond shared objectives into the operational mechanics of oversight. The Public Procurement Act already provides for post-award monitoring, internal audits, and contract performance reviews. Similar clauses appear in the new VFM law, particularly around contract outcomes and compliance monitoring. For procurement practitioners, this raises a practical problem: a government agency executing a single contract could find itself answerable to two separate oversight regimes, potentially receiving conflicting directives and facing delays as a result.
Parliament’s own Finance Committee acknowledged the risk, recommending clear procedural safeguards for assessments, including notice requirements, timelines, and reporting obligations, to prevent jurisdictional overlap with other oversight institutions.
The GIPS position is also shared by independent experts. Management consultant and procurement specialist Kobina Ata-Bedu, speaking on the Joy Super Morning Show, argued that Ghana does not require a new law and that existing institutions and legal frameworks are adequate to ensure value for money in public spending. He maintained that the Public Procurement Act, if properly adhered to, is capable of delivering the value the country seeks without additional legislation.
Annan added that Ghana may be moving against the grain of international best practice. Drawing on frameworks used by the World Bank and the European Union, he noted that value for money is typically embedded within procurement systems rather than separated into a standalone institutional structure. In established models, procurement laws are designed to inherently deliver value for money; the work of a separate body to enforce it adds a layer that global standards have generally found unnecessary.
The concerns echo those raised by the Minority Caucus in Parliament during the bill’s passage, with Minority Leader Alexander Afenyo-Markin arguing that existing frameworks under the Public Financial Management Act and the Public Procurement Act already provided adequate mechanisms to validate public spending, and that the new office would add bureaucracy susceptible to political control.
The government’s position is that the new office fills a gap the Public Procurement Authority cannot address. Finance Minister Dr. Cassiel Ato Forson has argued that the existing procurement framework focuses on procedural compliance rather than cost efficiency, and that the VFM Office will enforce cost benchmarks, require value for money certificates for major contracts, and coordinate with the Auditor-General, the Public Procurement Authority (PPA), and the Internal Audit Agency to impose penalties for waste and fraud. He has projected that the reform could save up to GH¢3 billion annually.
GIPS says it is not opposing the law outright. Its petition calls specifically for legislative alignment between the VFM Act and the Public Procurement Act to eliminate overlapping mandates, clarify which institution holds primary oversight authority at each stage of a contract, and ensure that the combined framework produces efficiency rather than friction. Without that alignment, the Institute warns, a law designed to protect public money could inadvertently cost more to administer than it saves.
The bill currently awaits presidential assent.
