Digital maturity and sustainable procurement practices in Ghana’s local government authorities: Evidence from the Ghana Electronic Procurement System

Abstract

Digital procurement is expanding globally, yet little is known about how far digital procurement systems support sustainable procurement in local government in Ghana, especially through the Ghana Electronic Procurement System (GHANEPS). This study examines the extent to which sustainability is integrated into GHANEPS and how digital maturity relates to sustainable procurement performance in Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDAs). The study adopts a quantitative, cross sectional survey design guided by the Technology Organisation Environment framework and institutional theory. Data were collected through structured questionnaires from 163 procurement related officers and analysed in SPSS version 28 using descriptive statistics, independent t tests, analysis of variance and Pearson correlation. GHANEPS strongly supports economic functions such as contract performance tracking (mean = 4.1), but it hardly supports social and environmental criteria. Carbon footprint declarations (mean = 1.2) and gender responsive procurement (mean = 1.5) were largely absent. The most serious barriers were the lack of sustainability indicators in the system (mean = 4.7), inadequate staff training (mean = 4.5) and poor internet and electricity access (mean = 4.1). High digital maturity assemblies recorded significantly higher total sustainability scores (p < 0.001), but this difference was driven by the economic dimension (p < 0.001). The social difference was marginal (p = 0.051) and the environmental difference was not significant (p = 0.266). These findings show that digitisation alone does not deliver sustainable procurement, and that unequal digital access risks excluding rural and women owned small and medium enterprises. The study proposes a Digital Sustainability Alignment Model and recommends adding sustainability modules to GHANEPS, building the digital and sustainability skills of officers and suppliers, and including sustainability indicators in the performance systems of MMDAs.