The Ghana Ports and Harbours Authority knows how to move something enormous without losing control of it. That, after all, is what harbour tugs are for. In 2020, Cummins celebrated three new GPHA vessels carrying enough machinery to bully container ships around Ghanaian waters: two QSK95 marine diesels per tug, 7,200 horsepower between them, at least 80 tonnes of bollard pull and enough auxiliary Cummins hardware to generate electricity and throw water at a fire.
Cummins had good reason to sound pleased. These were the first tug applications for the QSK95, substantial lumps of engineering built for precision in a place where a few metres in the wrong direction can become an extremely expensive fucking afternoon. GPHA’s Commander Stephen Abane Ayeo said the authority already knew Cummins well. The relationship, he said, stretched back more than 30 years.
Excellent. Three decades is long enough to know whether somebody can keep a machine pointed in the right direction.
The public procurement system appears to have presented more of a navigational challenge.
Ghana’s Auditor-General later examined GPHA and found procurement documents missing from review, a contract awarded to somebody who had not tendered for it at a higher price, millions of cedis in single-source procurement without required prior approval and restricted tendering conducted without Public Procurement Authority approval. A separate parliamentary episode then sent GPHA management toward the Attorney-General over another GH¢6.3 million of procurement carried out without PPA approval.
And because apparently the harbour needed another vessel in this convoy of shit, a GPHA contract at Takoradi also sits inside the ongoing corruption prosecution of the former chief executive of Ghana’s own Public Procurement Authority.
The tugs could pull 80 tonnes.
The governance needed a fucking tow.
Ghana Ports: 7,200 Horsepower Of Precision
The three new tugboats were serious pieces of equipment. GPHA commissioned Commander K.T. Dovlo, Ben Owusu-Mensah and Josephine Asante in early 2020 after Turkish shipbuilder TOR Group completed them to a Robert Allan design. The vessels were intended to help Ghana’s ports handle larger ships, improve turnaround times, fight fires, assist rescues and respond to pollution.
Each tug carried two Cummins QSK95 engines. Each engine produced 3,600 brake horsepower, giving every vessel 7,200 BHP of propulsion. Rolls-Royce azimuth thrusters converted that power into the sort of manoeuvrability required when nudging floating cities around concrete infrastructure. Cummins also supplied QSB7-powered generator sets and a QSK38 engine for the fire pump.
GPHA said the three vessels cost £24 million. It described them as part of a push to modernise the ports and attract larger ships. The authority’s own chairman said they would enhance revenue, improve safe operations and reduce turnaround times. Cummins meanwhile had its first QSK95 tug application and a customer willing to praise three decades of partnership.
Nobody needs to sneer at the engineering. It is impressive.
That actually makes what follows funnier.
Because the entire purpose of a harbour tug is controlled movement. Power without control is useless. Direction matters. Authority matters. Somebody has to know where the vessel is going, why it is going there and who authorised the fucking manoeuvre.
Which brings us neatly to procurement.
Seven Transactions And The Vanishing Paperwork
The Auditor-General’s 2020 report reached GPHA and encountered an immediate problem. Management could not provide procurement documents for seven transactions totalling GH¢1,827,453.31 for audit review.
That is a magnificent opening act for a public authority responsible for handling some of the most closely documented commercial movements in the country.
Ports run on documentation. Bills of lading, manifests, customs declarations, cargo records, vessel movements, clearances, permits and invoices exist because moving valuable shit around without records tends to create opportunities for chaos, fraud or both. Yet when Ghana’s constitutional audit machinery came looking for the documents behind seven GPHA procurement transactions, the necessary material was not available for review.
The Auditor-General advised management to produce it. Otherwise, the procurement officer and the officials who authorised and approved the transactions could be held liable for the amount involved.
No need for TCAP to improve that image. The country’s port authority apparently had more than GH¢1.8 million of procurement sitting beyond the auditor’s line of sight.
Maybe the documents were enjoying unrestricted navigation.
The Chemistry Analyser Changed Course Mid-Tender
Then came a smaller transaction with a beautifully concentrated dose of institutional bollocks.
GPHA’s Evaluation Committee recommended PKF Scientific Ltd to supply a chemistry analyser for GH¢248,246.87.
Straightforward enough.
Except the contract was not awarded to PKF Scientific.
It went to DCL, which the Auditor-General described as a non-tenderer, for GH¢276,674.27.
So the recommended tenderer did not get the contract. A company that had not tendered did. The final amount was higher.
The Auditor-General calculated an additional cost of GH¢23,427.40 and recommended that the officials who authorised the transaction refund it jointly. The report attributed the extra payment to their collective negligence.
There is almost a nautical elegance to it. Launch the tender, evaluate the tenderers, select one, then somehow dock with a different company at a higher price.
That is not procurement.
That is fucking maritime improv.
GPHA operates equipment capable of holding a giant ship against wind, tide and momentum. Yet a chemistry-analyser contract apparently managed to slip its moorings between evaluation and award.
Then Eight Single-Source Procurements Sailed Through
The Auditor-General found more.
GPHA carried out eight separate procurements worth GH¢5,115,487.47 using the single-source method without obtaining prior approval from the Board of the Public Procurement Authority.
There was also GH¢1,193,398.67 of restricted tendering without the required PPA Board approval.
By this stage, the procurement compass appears to have been stored in somebody else’s locker.
Single-source procurement exists for circumstances where competition may legitimately be restricted. That makes the approval mechanism rather important. It is the barrier between an authorised exception and public officials simply deciding that competitive procurement is an optional extra for people with too much time on their hands.
The Auditor-General recommended sanctions against GPHA management under Ghana’s Public Procurement Act.
Not a suggestion to update the PowerPoint.
Not a gentle reminder to put a Post-it beside the procurement manual.
Sanctions.
Cummins’ QSK95 installation could deliver 80 tonnes of bollard pull. Ghana’s Auditor-General was trying to get the organisation buying public goods and services to remain attached to statutory approval.
Different forms of holding power.
The Auditor Asked For Contract Files And Got Sweet Fuck-All
The audit team also requested contract documents from GPHA.
Management did not honour the request.
The Auditor-General therefore said it could not examine the contracts to satisfy itself that procurement due process had been followed. It recommended that GPHA retrieve and submit the documents, failing which sanctions should be invoked for financial indiscipline.
This is where the satire becomes almost annoyingly easy.
A port authority exists to know what arrives, what departs, who owns it, where it is going and under what authority it moves.
The Auditor-General asked what happened with public contracts.
The institutional answer, stripped of all ceremonial bollocks, amounted to: we cannot show you.
Perhaps somebody should have strapped a QSK95 to the filing cabinet.
At least then it might have arrived.
GH¢179 Million Into A Hospital And No Performance Report For The Auditor
The same Auditor-General report contained another governance gem.
GPHA held a 100 per cent equity interest in International Maritime Hospital, recorded at GH¢179,383,362.
The auditors said they could not sight any report on the performance of that investment.
Think about the size of that number for a moment. Nearly GH¢180 million invested, yet the Auditor-General could not see a performance report showing how the investment was doing.
The recommendation was hardly exotic. Management should obtain operational reports at least every six months and audited financial statements every year.
That is corporate governance at the level of remembering to look through the fucking binoculars.
Nobody is saying the hospital investment itself was illegitimate or worthless. The finding is narrower and still ridiculous enough: auditors examining a very large GPHA investment could not sight a report on its performance.
Ports track containers.
Investors track investments.
This should not require a fucking semaphore course.
The Car Fleet Then Went Around The Approval Buoy
The story did not end with the 2020 findings.
In February 2023, Ghana’s Public Accounts Committee considered another procurement issue involving GPHA. The Auditor-General had found GH¢6.3 million of vehicle procurement conducted without PPA approval.
The purchases included a Toyota Land Cruiser and Toyota Camry vehicles.
GPHA management reportedly explained that it had standardised Toyota and Audi vehicles for directors and Toyota saloons for heads of department because of their robustness. That meant dealing with particular established suppliers capable of providing sales, maintenance and after-sales support.
It is a wonderfully corporate defence.
We wanted these cars.
They were robust.
We knew where to buy them.
Therefore the statutory approval requirement apparently became some irritating buoy bobbing in a channel management already knew how to navigate.
The auditors did not accept the explanation. Neither did the Public Accounts Committee chairman, Dr James Klutse Avedzi.
He directed that the matter be referred to the Office of the Attorney-General for prosecution and told GPHA, in substance, to take whatever defence it had to court.
That is an extraordinary place for the governance of a national port authority to arrive.
Cummins had spent years praising its durable, economical and strong engines.
GPHA found itself discussing durable, reputable and robust fucking cars before Parliament.
Apparently durability was becoming a procurement philosophy.
One GPHA Contract Then Entered A Corruption Prosecution
There is another layer, and this one needs its boundaries kept clean.
A GPHA procurement does not merely appear in audit criticism. A contract awarded by the authority at Takoradi also features in the ongoing criminal prosecution of Adjenim Boateng Adjei, the former chief executive of Ghana’s Public Procurement Authority.
The Office of the Special Prosecutor says Adjei used public office to influence procurement processes in favour of Talent Discovery Limited, a company in which he held an interest.
One of the contracts identified by prosecutors concerns GPHA’s procurement of a mobile column lift for the Takoradi Mechanical Engineering Department.
Records from the procurement process show Talent Discovery Limited among the companies approved to participate in restricted tendering. Prosecutors allege that Adjei improperly participated in procurement decision-making while failing to disclose his interest in the company, and that Talent Discovery obtained GPHA’s contract.
The prosecution remained active in 2026.
That matters because Adjei has not been convicted on these charges. A criminal charge is not a judgment, however inconvenient that distinction may be for anybody trying to manufacture a cleaner headline.
GPHA itself is not the accused in that prosecution either.
But the institutional optics are still fucking dreadful.
A contract issued by the national port authority became one of the transactions through which the former head of the country’s procurement regulator is accused of abusing public office for private benefit.
The organisation responsible for operating Ghana’s ports had somehow become scenery in a criminal case about the integrity of Ghanaian public procurement.
You could not commission a more on-brand fucking metaphor.
Do Not Merge The Scandals, The Pattern Is Bad Enough
It is important not to mash these episodes into one giant accusation.
The missing procurement documents, non-tenderer chemistry analyser, unapproved single-source deals and restricted tendering are findings from the Auditor-General concerning GPHA management.
The GH¢6.3 million vehicle issue produced a later Public Accounts Committee referral.
The Adjenim Boateng Adjei prosecution concerns alleged conduct by the former PPA chief and includes a GPHA contract among the procurement transactions under examination.
Those are different episodes with different legal statuses.
Keeping them separate does not soften the story.
It makes the story worse.
Because this is not one disputed invoice being stretched into a morality play. It is a succession of procurement-control problems appearing through different institutional doors: Auditor-General, Public Accounts Committee, Public Procurement Authority records and the Office of the Special Prosecutor.
Different channel.
Same harbour.
In 2026, GPHA Entered A New Era Of Accountability
Fast-forward to 28 August 2026.
Ghana’s Internal Audit Agency inaugurated a new GPHA Audit Committee.
The language was splendid.
GPHA was entering a new era of accountability. The committee would strengthen transparency and accountability, address weaknesses in internal controls, promote good governance and ensure statutory reports arrived on time.
GPHA’s Director-General, Major General Paul Seidu Tanye-Kulono, assured the gathering that the authority was committed to submitting statutory reports timeously.
Board chairman Johnson Asiedu Nketia went further. Laws without sanctions, he said, are merely advisory.
Well, quite.
That line lands differently after reading the old audit files.
For years, the Auditor-General had already been pointing at statutory procurement requirements, missing approvals, unavailable documentation and contracts it could not properly examine.
Then the Public Accounts Committee referred management toward the Attorney-General over procurement carried out without PPA approval.
Now, in 2026, the institutional language is transparency, internal controls, timely reports and sanctions.
Better late than never.
The harbourmaster has apparently rediscovered the fucking chart.
Cummins Found A Great Customer Story
None of these procurement findings establishes anything wrong with the three QSK95-powered tugs.
That distinction matters.
The vessels appear to have been genuine infrastructure investments intended to help GPHA handle bigger ships, fight fires, respond to pollution and improve port operations. They were classed by Bureau Veritas and built around serious marine engineering.
The point is not that Cummins caused GPHA’s governance failures.
The point is that Cummins chose GPHA as another corporate showcase.
It presented a long-term customer with powerful engines, sophisticated tugs, expanding ports and more than three decades of partnership. The machinery offered precision, redundancy, control and enormous pulling power.
The customer’s public governance history offered something rather less seaworthy.
Seven procurement transactions without documents available for audit.
A chemistry analyser awarded to a non-tenderer at a higher price.
More than GH¢5.1 million of single-source procurement without prior PPA Board approval.
Nearly GH¢1.2 million of restricted tendering without approval.
Contract documents withheld from audit review.
A nearly GH¢180 million investment for which auditors could not sight a performance report.
Another GH¢6.3 million procurement issue referred toward prosecution by Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee.
And a Takoradi contract sitting inside the live corruption prosecution of the former head of Ghana’s Public Procurement Authority.
That is not one rogue wave.
That is a fucking tide table.
The Tugs Stayed On Course
The delicious irony is that the Cummins machinery was designed precisely to stop enormous things drifting where they should not.
Two QSK95s per tug.
Azimuth thrusters.
Eighty tonnes of bollard pull.
Firefighting capability.
Navigation classification.
Pollution-response equipment.
Every component exists because harbour operations punish loss of control.
Public procurement works on exactly the same principle.
Rules create the channel.
Approvals mark the limits.
Auditors check the course.
Documentation shows where the money went.
GPHA’s QSK95 tugs could manoeuvre a massive vessel safely through restricted water.
Parts of the authority’s procurement history had rather more difficulty staying between the fucking buoys.
Cummins found 7,200 horsepower.
Ghana’s auditors found missing documents, missing approvals and contracts they could not properly inspect.
The engines were built to stop ships dragging anchor.
Somebody should have ordered one for procurement.
Lee Thompson – Founder, The Cummins Accountability Project
Sources
- Cummins – Machine of the Month: Tor Tugboats
- GPHA – Three New Tugboats
- Graphic Online – GPHA commissions three tugboats
- Auditor-General of Ghana – 2020 Public Corporations Report
- Graphic Online – PAC refers two regulators for prosecution
- Office of the Special Prosecutor – Adjenim Boateng Adjei Case Profile
- Graphic Online – Former PPA Boss Adjenim Boateng Adjei Charged
- Internal Audit Agency – GPHA Audit Committee