Introduction: This article discusses the extent to which the promulgation of Public Procurement Act (PPA) 663 has affected the acquiring of water treatment chemicals which is pivotal to the operations of Ghana Water Company Limited (GWCL). The purpose is to find out from officials within the company about their impressions with the coming into force of the act for more than a decade now. Methods: A descriptive study with quantitative methods was conducted with workers of GWCL; procurements and materials, operations/project management unit and projects planning and development in Accra. Questionnaires were administered to 85 workers within GWCL through a purposive sampling method. Data analyses involved descriptive statistics using SPSS version 20. Results: Out of 85 participants, 88.2% revealed that all contracts are made available to interested individuals to apply through sources such as website of GWCL and newspapers. Most workers agreed that procurement management has improved efficiency and effectiveness in procurement of essential water chemicals (mean=4.08). Finding further revealed that the PPA has significant (65.9%) and very strong effect (27.1%) on procurement of essential water treatment. However, the structure has been plagued by lapses affecting procurement of water treatment chemicals. These include bureaucracy and centralization which has negative impacts on procurement activities. Conclusion: The study concludes that since the coming into force of the act, there has been institutionalization of structures to handle procurement within GWCL. Therefore, measures to decentralize the activities of GWCL will further help in enhancing efficiency within GWCL and other entities to a larger extent.
Background: Incidence and prevalence of reproductive health difficulties have been shown to be higher among younger people. In Ghana, youthfriendly sexual and reproductive health services and facilities are very limited. The study aimed at examining the friendliness of sexual and reproductive health service delivery and utilization. Methods: Across sectional design with both qualitative and quantitative methods was conducted to examine the friendliness and utilization of reproductive health services among youth in the Kwadaso Sub-Metro of Ashanti Region, Ghana. A multi-stage stratified sampling was used to enroll 170 youth (150 in-school and 20 out of school youth) aged 10 - 24years. Data analysis involved descriptive statistics using SPSS software version 20. Results: Findings demonstrated that out of the 150 in-school youth sampled, 56% ever had a boyfriend or girlfriend, however, about one third(39.3%) did not recall the length of stay with partner, 58% have heard about sexual reproductive health services offered in the study area. A total of 55.8% of all categories of youth had used at least one or more reproductive health service before. Findings again revealed that 37.2% and 44% respectively of youth who had used sexual reproductive health considered the services received at a facility to be very friendly and friendly, yet, a few 18.6% indicated unfriendliness with services received at the facility. Conclusion: An integrative and comprehensive approach is required to scale up youth utilization of sexual reproductive health services especially facility based. This requires baseline survey of youth users of reproductive health services and the quality of services offered.