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Introduction
The 13th African Games, hosted in Accra in 2023, represented a massive investment by the government of Ghana in national sports infrastructure and international prestige. Under Article 187(8) of the 1992 Constitution and the Audit Service Act, the auditor-general conducted a comprehensive audit to ensure these public funds were managed with transparency, accountability, and probity.
The audit’s scope covered everything from the construction of new complexes, such as the Borteyman Sports Complex and the University of Ghana Stadium, to the operational logistics managed by the Local Organising Committee (LOC) and the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation (GBC). While the Games were physically delivered, the audit revealed deep systemic failures in financial controls, specifically in how contracts were awarded and documented. DUBAWA will unpack the irregularities in parts to bring a careful understanding of the issues. The full report can be found here.
The GH¢ 2.7bn documentation gap
The most staggering finding in the entire audit is a GH¢ 2,700,000,000 (2.7 billion cedi) gap related to the absence of mandatory documentation for single-source procurements.
In public financial management, single-source procurement, where a contract is handed to one specific supplier without a competitive tender, is considered a high-risk process. Because it bypasses the open market, it is strictly regulated to prevent favouritism and overpricing.
According to the audit, the Ministry of Youth and Sports and the Local Organising Committee submitted unjustified applications for three engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) contracts valued at GH¢2,343,277,844.88 and fifty-two other contracts for works, goods, and services valued at GH¢363,789,842.60. The sums amount to 2.7 billion cedis. This can be cited on page 27 of the report.
For these fifty-five single-sourced contracts, totalling GH¢ 2.7 billion, the audit found three critical failures:
Absence of mandatory justifications: There was no documented record explaining why these specific contracts were not opened to competitive bidding. Under Ghanaian law, single-sourcing is only permitted under specific, urgent, or unique circumstances, which were not evidenced here.
Missing supplier qualification evidence: The audit team found no proof that the selected suppliers had the necessary technical or financial capacity to execute the contracts. Without this, the state had no assurance that these entities were capable of delivering the services they were being paid for.
Lack of price-reasonableness tests: Perhaps most critically, there were no records of price tests to compare the contract sums against fair market values. This creates a high risk that the state may have significantly overpaid for goods and services because there was no benchmark used to verify that the prices were fair.
The impact of the gap
This GH¢ 2.7 billion gap does not necessarily mean all the money is “missing,” but it means the entire procurement process was opaque. Because the mandatory justifications and qualifications for the awarding of the contracts are missing, and the Auditor-General could not verify if the state received value for money or if the procurement laws were followed in good faith.
Recommendations
The audit recommended that the former Minister of Youth and Sports, Mustapha Ussif; the former Chief Director at the Ministry of Transport and the Office of the Head of Civil Service, William Kartey; and the former LOC Chairperson, Dr Kwaku Ofosu-Asare, be sanctioned in accordance with Section 92 of the Public Procurement Act, 2003 (Act 663), as amended.
