Reject Emergency Powers Bill …Public Affairs Analyst Tells NASS

Even before the rumoured Economic Stabilization Bill 2016 aimed at giving President Muhammadu Buhari emergency powers gets an opportunity to be presented to the National Assembly, a public affairs analyst and procurement expert, Mr. Biebele Arimie has urged the National Assembly to reject the proposed law in its entirety because it will put the nation’s economy in a few hands and kill the anti-corruption crusade.
Making the call in an interview with The Tide in Port Harcourt, Arimie said the bill, if allowed to see the light of day, will completely destroy the economy and bring untold hardship to the generality of Nigerians, adding that those pushing the bill were misleading and misdirecting the President for some other considerations other than the good of the economy and the welfare of the people.
“My advice to the National Assembly will be to reject it completely. I want to believe that there are people in this government that want to mislead and misdirect the President. They’re trying to pull the wool over his eyes, not just him alone but the entire Nigerians because it does not make any economic sense,” he said, adding that “this rumour flying around about them wanting to settle political stakeholders at the expense of Nigerians even when we have a very bad economy, I don’t think is acceptable, and I don’t think the National Assembly should even give it a thought”.
Arimie, who is also a former Chairman of the Nigerian Institute of Purchasing and Supply Management, Rivers/Bayelsa chapter, described as crazy and out-landish the proposal to raise mobilisation fee to contractors from 15% in the procurement law to 50%, in the proposed bill, arguing that it was against international best practice for any mobilisation to be given at all.
“Remember, the Procurement Act requires the contractor to have the financial and technical capacity to do the job”, he pointed out, stressing that if the law has gone further to prescribe 15% mobilisation in addition to the financial capacity of the contractor, it was outrageous to raise it to a whooping 50% when all that is needed is for government to release money as at when due, at every milestone.
“When you abridge the procurement process and give these contracts, you’re putting the economy in the hands of a few unjustly because there’ll be no competition, there’ll be no transparency, there’ll be no accountability”, he insisted, arguing that the present state of the economy cannot support such a measure.
On the issue of patronising local contractors, Arimie wondered the rationale for this provision when the Procurement Law has already taken care of it under what he called Domestic Preference.
“All that the Federal Government has to do is to constitute the Federal Council on Procurement to be headed by the Minister of Finance.
“Once you constitute that, they will formulate policies for domestic preference. You don’t need to amend the law”, he said, adding that “it is either that some people are trying to be mischievous or that they do not even understand the law they have in their hands”.
As regards virement, he said it should not be difficult for the executive to approach the National Assembly at any point in time to justify and get approval to move money meant for one subhead to another, if the intentions are clear and the purpose, manifestly desirable.
“In my opinion, everything about this proposed, supposed and alleged bill does not make any economic sense apart from the fact that some people intend to enrich themselves”, he emphasised, insisting that mischief makers were at work, and “they want to use the issue of time to abridge the law and share the contract among themselves at very exorbitant prices at the detriment of the people, and at the end of the day, the economy will be swept under the carpet”.

Opaka Dokubo