Question

The Public Health Directorate in November 2015 anticipated the outbreak of Yellow Fever in the first quarter of the ensuing year 2016. The Directorate subsequently asked the procurement officer to place an order for the supply of Yellow Fever vaccines.

In December, 2015, the Procurement officer placed an order for the supply of the vaccines but the order was silent on the strengths of the vaccine and delivery date. In January 2016, the Head of Entity requested the Procurement Officer to brief him on the preparedness towards the anticipated outbreak. The procurement officer confirmed placing an order in December 2015 for the supply of the vaccines. Delivery was expected in the first quarter of 2016 before the anticipated outbreak. In February 2016, the Procurement Officer got anxious that the vaccines had not been delivered as expected. Sporadic cases of Yellow Fever were reported in endemic districts in the Asempa region of Ghana.

The Head of Entity convened a meeting to discuss the outbreak. Public Health practitioners in the Region confirmed their preparedness through treatment protocols to support fieldwork in the event of an epidemic. It became obvious that the delivery could not be made before the outbreak. The Head of Entity accordingly requested the Procurement Officer to brief the meeting on arrangements made for the delivery of the vaccines.

In response, the Procurement Officer presented volumes of files in support of orders placed. It took the meeting three sittings to retrieve a copy of the particular contract.

When the supplier was contacted to explain the delivery, he intimated that he had an unlimited time for delivery as the contract was not explicit on the delivery date. He however informed the entity that he had pediatric doses of the vaccine which he could immediately supply

Eventually there was an outbreak which claimed several lives. The Procurement Officer insisted that he was not blamable because he had placed the order as far back as December, 2015.

Q.Discuss the issues in the case study as related to contracting and contract management

Answer 1

The issue in this case study was the lack of communication between the procurement officer and the supplier which has ultimately claimed innocent lives. The sad part is that despite knowing the proximity of an outbreak, the Government is in a spot of bother. The core reason for this unfortunate events was the contract didn't have no details specifying the dosage amount and the estimated date of delivery. In my opinion, it's not even a contract to say the least. An ideal contract consists of an offer, acceptance, mutuality of obligation, competency and capacity. Had these factors taken into account, a perfect contract would be made.

Both the Procurement officer and the supplier are to be blamed. For the burden of making a crystal clear contract was on the officer, the supplier should have had the basic question of when and how much of the vaccines needs to be delivered. Neither of them were being professional and fumbled with the task, thereby risking a lot of lives. In short lack of proper managment and the communication gap has put the government in a tough situation to combat.

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