FG Harps On Procurement Plan Procedures Compliance

The Federal Government through the Bureau of Public Procurement (BPP) has warned that it will no longer tolerate any act of lawlessness whereby its ministries, departments and agencies, MDAs, will fail to adhere or comply with the statutory requirement for procurement planning procedures.
The Federal government said that the practice had robbed the government of vital data which could have been used for proper planning and development.
Director-General, the Bureau of Public Procurement (BPP), Surveyor Mamman Ahmadu gave the warning at the Procurement Retreat for Federal Permanent Secretaries in Calabar, recently.
“Compliance by the MDAs to procurement planning requirement is abysmally very low despite the enormous benefits of preparing procurement plans”, he said.
The DG of BPP stated that federal government had placed the performance of its MDAs as at last year at below 50% which according to him was completely unacceptable and hope to correct that anomaly in the 2018 fiscal year by laying emphasis on procurement planning and conducting a procurement surveillance to monitor implementation.
“The refusal of the MDAs to comply with the statutory requirements for a procurement plan has overtime denied the bureau of vital data that inhibit its capacity to conduct adequate planning.
“Some MDAs do not adhere to procurement planning procedures and have not performed very well, the highest performance which is 50% is not good enough. MDAs are expected to adhere to procurement planning requirements because we want resources to be spent for the good of all.
Capital expenditure is going downwards while recurrent expenditure is going upwards and so we are looking forward to a reversal of that this fiscal year through procurement planning”, he said.
Justifying the importance of the retreat, the Director General stated that most of the permanent secretaries present at the retreat were fresh and had not attended procurement retreat, adding that the retreat would provide an opportunity for the first timers to sharpen their skills on the best procurement practices so that they would deliver to the country what they were supposed to do in the best possible way.
The DG reminded them that non submission of procurement plans constitutes an offence in line with section 58(4)(h) of Public Procurement Act which according to him was capable of attracting a punishment of 5 years imprisonment as well as dismissal from service and charged them to adhere to this statutory requirements this fiscal year.
In her remarks, the Head of Service of the Federation, Winifred Oyo Ita charged Nigeria civil servants to stand firm on issues that had to do with following due process adding that individuals and institutions who hoped to do business with government must play by the rules of the game instead of trying to cut corners.
Chairman of the Senate Committee on Public Procurement, Senator Joshua Dariye called for collaboration of stakeholders to ensure optimum results in the nation’s public procurement practices, adding that the public procurement act was aimed at ensuring spread in projects and flayed the practice of recycling contractors in project procurement in the country.

Friday Nwagbara, Calabar