The Office of the Director of Public Procurement (ODPP) is one of the five autonomous State institutions for governance and it was established to monitor and oversee all public sector procurement activities.
Up to about 2000, public procurement in the Central Government was the responsibility of Central Government Stores (CGS) and Central Tender Board (CTB). Procurement activities under the responsibility of two institutions were noted to be poorly done resulting in huge losses of government revenue.

In view of this, the then Head of State, in his Millennium Speech on 31 December 1999, directed that all public procurement be done through his office (OPC). By that time, Government Contracting-out Unit (GCU) and Rationalisation Unit (RU) were already established in the OPC. GCU was established with the sole purpose of contracting-out non-core Government services. It was, therefore, given the task of approving all major contracts and administer Interim Procurement Guidelines OPC developed. It also managed the public procurement reforms under Fiscal Restructuring and Deregulation Project (FRDP 111). CTB was dissolved in 2001 and all its functions were split between GCU and Government Ministries and departments.

The GCU carried out its responsibilities until 2003 when the Public Procurement Act which was the result of a 1996 diagnostic study conducted under the Procurement and Supply Management Reform program, was passed. The ODPP was then established in April 2004 under Section 4 of the Act to champion the establishment of a strong procurement management in the public sector and respond to glaring problems identified in the diagnostic study.