An Assessment of Post Contract Award Management Practices at the Ahafo Ano North District Assembly

Procurement entities in Ghana, and more especially district assemblies do not pay much attention to post contract award management practices. An assessment report by the PPA on the procurement performance indicate low compliance with contract management practice by the public procurement entities. The challenges of post contract award management practices at the district assemblies are profound and as a result leads to huge losses of financial resources to the country. In its Annual Progress Report (2012), the Ahafo Ano North District Assembly identified project abandonment and completed projects not in use as some of the issues of contract irregularities facing the district assembly. Even though much has been written about contract management practices a thorough and critical assessment is yet to be fully carried on the practices at the post contract award stage at the district assemblies. The Public Procurement Authority acknowledges this fact and is in the process of developing contract management guidelines for public procurement entities. It is in light of these observations that the researcher decided to undertake an assessment of post award management practices at the Ahafo Ano District Assembly and explore areas of the assembly’s post award management activities for further improvement. The research adopted a quantitative approach to research in its data gathering and analysis. Close ended questions were formulated on ten key areas of post contract award management. To enhance the assessment, open ended questions were added to solicit for the respondents view on the weaknesses and strength of the assembly’s post contract award management practices. The questionnaire was administered to contracting officers, requisitioners, project managers and other stakeholders such as legal and finance officers. To obtain different perspectives on the challenges of post award contract management, maximum variation sampling, a type of purposive sampling was used obtain a sample size of forty two for the research. The Statistic Package for Social Science (Version 22) and Microsoft Office Excel (2013) aided the analysis. Relative Importance Index formula was used to score the data. Data analysis reveal that there is an underperformance in the areas of risk management, performance monitoring, contract close-out and information systems. Abandoned projects, poor communication channel, unutilized projects and unclear roles and responsibilities at the post contract award management stage of the procurement process. All the areas of post contract award management needs improvement even though some obtain scores a little above average The measures recommended for the assembly in improving its post contract award management practices includes the development of policies, procedures and rules for different contract on the basis of its nature and risk management plan for the post award activities. Contract performance monitoring and dispute resolution management needs to be improved. The assembly should adopt integrated team approach comprising multifunctional teams to manage its contracts. Information systems like Enterprise Resource Planning needs to be adopted.

Source: KNUST