But warns little will change if PPA is not Resetted
By Leo Nelson
Ghana’s freshly approved Value for Money Office has won cautious applause from policy think-tank IMANI Africa but with a blunt caveat: the new body will fail unless it jolts the Public Procurement Authority (PPA) into action.
The Value for Money Office Bill, 2026, is Parliament’s latest attempt to plug a leaky public spending system notorious for inflated contracts, abandoned projects and chronic budget overruns.
The new office is meant to provide independent oversight, ensuring that taxpayer funds actually buy something of worth.
IMANI is not convinced that the PPA the existing procurement gatekeeper – can reform itself. “Clearly, without fixing the PPA, little can change,” the think-tank said in an intervention released this week. “However, an independent Value for Money Ombudsman with a wider-ranging span of government interfacing and a public-friendly mandate can stimulate the PPA to deliver.”
The proposal: a specialised unit housed within the Cabinet Office, not as a replacement for the PPA but as a lean, intelligence-driven irritant. IMANI envisages a small team of technical experts with direct access to senior government leadership an ombudsman with the authority to demand justification for non-competitive tenders, request special audits and convene expert panels.
Performance-related pay is recommended. So is speed: strict timelines to prevent the new office from becoming another bureaucratic drag on project implementation.
The think-tank’s sharpest focus is on sole-sourcing and restricted tendering areas where Ghana’s procurement track record is most vulnerable to cost inflation and political favouritism. IMANI wants all such contracts reported to the ombudsman, which would then issue a “no objection” or demand further study.
Monthly public reports on every non-competitive tender reviewed including observations and recommendations would be mandatory. For larger competitive tenders and public-private partnerships, the ombudsman would produce “Value for Money Opinions”, summarised on a user-friendly digital platform.
In a bid to avoid the usual Accra-centric, closed-door approach, IMANI proposes a participatory model. Before finalising assessments, the ombudsman would invite input from experts, civil society and industry professionals creating a “national community of practice”. The PPA would be required to respond publicly to the ombudsman’s findings.
The subtext is clear: accountability cannot be outsourced to a single agency. After years of headline-grabbing procurement scandals and unfinished hospitals, Ghana’s public financial management is under fresh pressure from a government led by Finance Minister Cassiel Ato Forson, who has pledged fiscal discipline.
IMANI’s caution is rooted in experience. Ghana has seen oversight bodies created with fanfare, only to be starved of authority or captured by the very systems they were meant to police. The ombudsman must have the power to act to request audits, convene expert panels from academia and civil society, and publish findings.
But the think-tank also warns against duplication. The Value for Money Office must complement, not compete with, the PPA. The real test, as IMANI sees it, is whether the new institution can do what the old one could not: make procurement about value, not process.
For now, the bill is law. The debate has shifted from whether Ghana needs a value-for-money watchdog to whether it will have the courage to let it bite.