- KPMG-GIPS Survey Exposes the Costly Gap Between Procurement Rules and Behaviour
Ghanaian organisations are installing more procurement controls, monitoring suppliers more closely and improving reporting arrangements, yet fraud remains embedded in the systems through which they purchase goods and services. That contradiction is the central warning from the 2026 KPMG-Ghana Institute of Procurement and Supply Procurement Enhancement Survey.
The study found that 86 per cent of respondents believed procurement fraud occurred in their organisations to some degree, only marginally below the 89 per cent recorded in 2023. More troublingly, the proportion saying fraud occurred frequently or very frequently rose from 16 per cent to 19 per cent, even as reported governance practices improved. The evidence suggests that organisations may be building controls faster than they are changing behaviour.
Procurement fraud is not merely an accounting problem discovered after money disappears. It raises operating costs, distorts competition, rewards connected suppliers, weakens service delivery and ultimately transfers value from shareholders, taxpayers and customers to insiders. An organisation can possess manuals and approval procedures while still losing money if those controls are poorly enforced or circumvented.
The survey, based on 505 responses mainly from procurement practitioners, should be interpreted as a measure of professional experience and perception rather than a forensic calculation of actual losses. Respondents were not required to identify their organisations. Even with that limitation, an 86 per cent perception of fraud among people closest to purchasing decisions is too substantial to dismiss as isolated misconduct.
Awareness of procurement fraud prevention and detection policies rose from 51 per cent in 2023 to 62 per cent in 2026. Eighty-five per cent said procurement activities were regularly monitored for compliance, compared with 81 per cent previously. Vendor monitoring rose sharply, while controls intended to prevent kickbacks and related supplier fraud increased from 53 per cent to 76 per cent.
Reporting conditions also appear less hostile. Twelve per cent of respondents said they had suffered retaliation after reporting suspected fraud, down from 26 per cent in 2023. The share of organisations without an approved anonymous reporting channel declined from 59 per cent to 40 per cent. These changes suggest that speak-up cultures are slowly developing.
Yet the remaining gaps are large enough to keep fraudulent conduct commercially attractive. Four in every 10 organisations still lack an anonymous channel. One-fifth have no procedures for addressing conflicts of interest or vendor red flags, 26 per cent lack adequate separation of procurement duties, and 20 per cent have no formal process for investigating suspected fraud. Meanwhile, 43 per cent do not conduct periodic procurement fraud risk assessments.
Each weakness can reinforce another. An employee may observe bid manipulation but fear identification. A report may be submitted but enter an organisation without a structured investigation process. A supplier relationship may be reviewed on paper while beneficial ownership or personal connections remain hidden. Controls therefore need to operate as a connected system, not as separate boxes checked for audit purposes.
The sharp deterioration in training deserves particular attention. Forty-six per cent of respondents said they had received no training or guidance on procurement fraud, compared with 25 per cent in 2023. Confidence in the ability to detect fraud consequently fell from 90 per cent to 76 per cent, while 93 per cent said more training was required.
This is a warning against assuming that technology can compensate for weak human capability. Sixty-seven per cent of respondents said their organisations had adopted e-procurement systems, while 30 per cent were actively using artificial intelligence and another 22 per cent were piloting it. Digital systems can create audit trails, compare prices, flag duplicate invoices and identify suspicious vendor patterns. They can also reproduce weak approvals at greater speed if data are poor and accountability is absent.
The survey found personal financial gain was the leading motivation for procurement fraud, cited by 62 per cent of respondents, up from 57 per cent in 2023. It also found that 70 per cent of those pressured to participate in fraud were aged between 20 and 40. Younger operational employees may be especially vulnerable when instructions come from senior officers who control career progression.
Organisations must therefore direct scrutiny upward as well as downward. Ethics training for junior staff is insufficient where senior managers can override processes without documented justification. Boards and executive committees should receive periodic reports covering single-source purchases, repeated awards, tender waivers, contract variations, vendor concentration, related-party risks and unresolved whistleblower complaints.
Procurement performance should also be assessed by value obtained, not simply by whether procedures were completed. A transaction may satisfy formal approval requirements and still represent poor value because specifications were designed for a preferred bidder, competition was artificially narrowed or contract prices were inflated. Independent price benchmarking, beneficial-ownership checks and post-award verification are therefore essential.
The report’s message is not that reforms have failed. Rather, Ghanaian organisations have improved the architecture surrounding procurement without yet reducing the prevalence of fraud decisively. This may reflect stronger detection, more candid reporting or fraud adapting to new controls. Whatever the explanation, the small decline from 89 per cent to 86 per cent is not evidence of victory.
Management must now convert policies into consequences. That requires confidential reporting channels, protection against retaliation, timely investigations, sanctions applied regardless of rank, continuous staff training and data-led monitoring of suppliers and payments. Boards should demand evidence that controls prevent losses, not merely confirmation that policies exist.
In both public and private institutions, procurement determines whether scarce capital produces hospitals, equipment, infrastructure and productive capacity at the promised quality and price. When fraud becomes routine, organisations pay more and receive less, while honest suppliers lose faith in competition.
The most revealing number in the survey may therefore not be 86 per cent. It is the narrow three-percentage-point improvement achieved over three years despite stronger formal controls. Ghana’s procurement challenge is no longer simply to write better rules. It is to make evasion difficult, detection probable and punishment certain. Until that happens, governance improvements will remain visible in policy documents while fraudulent value continues to leak through everyday transactions.
