Reps Root For Council On Public Procurement

As part of efforts to check corruption and ensure due process and probity in the civil service, the House of Representatives has suggested the establishment of a National Council on Public Procurement in the country.

The House of Representatives is making efforts for the establishment of the Council on Public Procurement through its Committee on Public procurement which has met many times since the inauguration of the 7th National Assembly last June, with the issue on the front burner.

The Tide learnt in Abuja that the committee would make recommendations on this and submit same to the House at plenary as soon as it is through with fine-tuning its position on the proposed council.

A member of the committee, Hon Austin Ogbaburhon affirmed in an interview with The Tide that the committee is really passionate about the establishment of the Council on Privatization in Nigeria and was not relenting but making meaningful progress on the issue, adding that this has been a major problem to the committee.

According to Hon. Ogbaburhon, “The problem we are having is that public procurement suppose to have a Council but since our inception in ( June), 2007, we discovered that there is no council, so we’re working very hard to  see there’s a council (over seeing) that place(Public Procurement). The purpose of that is to ensure they follow due process.”

Noting that the recent nation-wide strike embarked upon by Labour and civil society groups has thrown up a lot of issues bothering on corruption and accountability, Hon Ogbaburhon assured that the committee will not relent until the Council is established, adding however that those charged with public procurement in the country were doing well so far, as “we’ve not heard anything contrary” about them.   Hon. Ogbaburhon who is also a member of the House Committee on Public Accounts further disclosed that the committee is putting measures in place to effectively address the issue of ghost workers in the federal civil service, with a view to nipping it in the bud.

“We’re committed to transparent budget implementation; we want to make sure that salaries are paid promptly and paid without having ghost workers involved; we really want to ensure this”, he assured, and expressed the hope that with the House ad-hoc committees currently investigating past budgets/how petroleum ‘subsidy’ money was spent, and determined to unravel alleged shady deals involved, coupled with the appointment of a new boss for the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC),”this time around, they’ll be more careful” with budget implementation..

Justus Awaji, Abuja