A public procurement advocacy group, Network for the Actualization of Social Growth and Viable Development (NEFGAD), has alleged that 70 per cent of procurement proceedings are being initiated and concluded in the bedrooms of privileged few in the country, even as it commended the Federal Government over the plan to review the Public Procurement Act 2007 for possible amendments.
The group, in a statement signed by its head of office, Mr Akingunola Omoniyi and made available to journalists on Saturday in Abuja, said President Bola Tinubu has again demonstrated courage and tact in tackling one of the most vicious enemies of the country’s growth and development.
Akingunola said: “The current Public Procurement Act, enacted about 15 years ago, is due for review in line with global best practices and changing operational dynamics in the public contracting sector.”
He noted that public procurement in Nigeria has become an “anything goes” phenomenon whereby everything and anything is possible. He insisted that the Public Procurement Act, in its current form, is creating a veneer of legality for blatant procurement illegality.
“The act as it stands has been so bastardised to such an extent that restricted and selective tendency is now a norm rather than the exception, with more than 70 per cent of procurement proceedings being initiated and concluded in the bedrooms of privileged few on whom the act placed so much supervisory and regulatory responsibilities. The implication of this dastardly act is that 70 per cent of the contract sum ended up under the same bedroom through which the procurement proceedings emanated as against solving critical national developmental problems,” he said.
Akingunola emphasised that the Public Procurement Act does not create any obstruction or impediment to development, as some self-serving elements will want people to believe.
He noted that the only timeline set out by the Procurement Act is the mandatory six-week newspaper advertisement period for bid solicitation. The wisdom in this, he said, is to promote competitiveness that will ensure economy and value for money. All other timelines and processes, according to him, are at the discretion of procuring entities.
The statement further emphasised that for the country to be littered with over 11,000 abandoned federal projects alone under a regulated procurement system, it shows that it is the corrupt few that are now regulating their pockets.
“One of the major contributing factors to the bastardization of the procurement system in the country is that successive governments are in the habit of enforcing the Procurement Act in breach of the non-constitution of the National Procurement Council and appointing the Director General for the Bureau of Public Procurement (BPP) through the back door of non-competitive selection,” he stated.
Akingunola admonished President Tinubu not to consider the proposal of some people seeking to make the president head of the National Procurement Council. He noted that presidents all over the world only sit to discuss policies and programmes, not with contractors to debate contracts, either at the weekly Federal Executive Council or as chairman of a National Procurement Council.
Group says amendment of Public Procurement Act long overdue