Sulemana Braimah warns of procurement abuse in road programme
81 out of 107 contracts awarded without competitive bidding, raising transparency and value-for-money concerns
A leading media and governance watchdog has sounded a loud alarm over what it describes as a deeply troubling pattern in the procurement practices underpinning the government’s flagship “Big Push” infrastructure initiative, warning that the excessive use of sole sourcing in awarding contracts may represent a serious breach of Ghana’s public procurement law.
Sulemana Braimah, Executive Director of the Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA), disclosed Joy FM’s Top Story, presenting data his organization obtained through a formal request to the relevant government ministry, data that he says tells a story that demands urgent scrutiny and public accountability.
At the centre of the MFWA’s concerns is a striking figure: out of 107 contracts reviewed under the Big Push programme, 81 were found to have been awarded through sole sourcing, a procurement method that bypasses competitive bidding and is intended, under Ghanaian law, for use only in tightly defined and justifiable circumstances.
The organisation had formally requested detailed information covering contracts awarded between January 2025 and January 2026, including procurement methods used, project details, contractor identities, contract values, and timelines. The Ministry responded with the requested data, but what that data revealed, according to Braimah, was deeply concerning.
“It cannot be that 81 out of 107 contracts were all justified under emergency conditions,” he argued, pointing to the overwhelming dominance of sole sourcing entries in the procurement method column of the data provided.
Braimah was careful to acknowledge that sole sourcing is not itself illegal under Ghana’s Public Procurement Act. The law does make provision for its use, but with clearly defined conditions attached. Circumstances such as genuine emergencies or situations requiring highly specialized expertise are among the scenarios where sole sourcing can be legitimately applied.
The MFWA’s concern, he stressed, is not with the provision’s existence in law but with what appears to be its systematic and potentially unjustified application at a scale that stretches the boundaries of any reasonable interpretation of those conditions.
“We all know sole sourcing is provided for in the law, but with clear conditionalities. The key issue is whether those conditions were met,” he stated.
When nearly 76% of all contracts under a single programme are awarded through a method designed for exceptional circumstances, the question of whether each of those awards met the required legal threshold becomes not just reasonable, but necessary.
Beyond the legal questions, Braimah framed the issue in terms of the broader principles that sound public procurement is designed to protect. He warned that the over-reliance on sole sourcing, if left unaddressed, risks systematically undermining three foundational pillars of responsible public spending: transparency, fair competition, and value for money.
Each of those pillars serves a distinct but interconnected purpose. Transparency ensures that citizens and oversight bodies can follow the trail of public funds. Fair competition protects against the entrenchment of favoured contractors and encourages better pricing and quality. Value for money ensures that Ghanaian taxpayers receive what they pay for.
When a procurement process routinely bypasses competitive bidding, all three of these protections are weakened simultaneously.
The MFWA’s findings carry an additional dimension of political sensitivity. Braimah pointed to past public commitments made by the governing party, and by President John Dramani Mahama himself, to curb the abuse of sole sourcing and strengthen compliance with procurement laws. Those stated commitments now sit in uncomfortable tension with the procurement data the MFWA has obtained.
The juxtaposition raises questions not just about compliance with existing law, but about the consistency between the government’s stated reform agenda and its actual procurement behaviour on the ground.
In response to the findings, the MFWA is putting forward a clear set of demands. Braimah is calling for explicit, documented justification for each of the 81 sole-sourced contracts, a case-by-case accounting of why competitive bidding was bypassed in each instance. He is also calling for greater overall transparency in procurement decision-making under the Big Push programme, and a systematic review to determine whether the conditions required by law were genuinely satisfied in each case.
The call is, at its core, a demand for accountability, a reminder that infrastructure investment, however necessary and well-intentioned, must be delivered through processes that the public can trust. As Ghana’s Big Push programme continues to draw attention for its construction progress, the procurement practices behind it are now drawing scrutiny of a different and more uncomfortable kind.
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