New Public Procurement Module Underway

[NewsCaster]

A new web-based software expected to guideline ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) in filling public procurement report is to be launched in March.

Already, the Bureau of Public Procurement (BPE) has commenced the sensitisation about the essence of the module. The formed the basis of discussion at a retreat of permanent secretaries of MDAs held in Lagos yesterday.

In the same vein, a detailed review of the 2010 public procurement has saved the Federal Government N68billion, the Director-General of the Bureau of Public Procurement (BPP), Emeka Ezeh, has said.   

Ezeh, who disclosed that the Bureau has saved N68 billion in 2010 procurement alone through its review, maintained that the greatest challenge to the procurement act is the resistance from the elites, who have benefitted from the old order.

The software is aimed at streamlining format for filing reports, thereby enabling relevant entities file their procurement plans according to specified guidelines.

With this, BPP can access the plans and reports of users, which will be collated and profiled online, irrespective of its office location.     

Under the new platform, BPE users, catergorised as overall, and Ministry administrators, can create new plan or modify existing ones.  Procurement officers in charge of ministries can view plans of agencies and departments under them, with options to add or remove from the module.

While documenting procurement plan, the system restricts users to certain threshold required in a particular contract type, after which it specifies the approving authority and the method applied. It also comes with the applicable qualification and review (prior or post).   

Head of Service of the Federation, Professor Oladapo Afolabi, who stressed the need to build adequate human capacity required to implement the proposed system, said the module would increase budget implementation and reduce common errors made by Ministries.

"We want to reduce mistakes by moving ahead of time. We hope the political structure will be supportive... We have lots of mechanisms for damage control," he said.     

However, he noted that the extent to which budget implementation target is actualised would depend on the support of the political structure, while admitting that the present system places much responsibility on the permanent secretaries.

At the retreat attended by about 37 MDAs, Director-General of BPE, Emeka Ezeh, drew the attention of the Ministries to the challenges faced by the Bureau, disclosing that some public officers have gone to seek the intervention of his kinsmen in relation to on-going investigations on procurement cases.

He warned that the Bureau would not fail to invoke relevant sections of the law against any individual or group that violates the law, claiming that some MDAs are not giving his team the expected cooperation.

On the success of due process campaign, he continued: "So far, we can say that we have achieved 70 per cent success of procurement reform. We have set up institutional framework. We are at the level of implementation and educating the stakeholder, because the challenge is that with the change of leadership, we need to educate them more. Those who will make the system work are our political bosses who we must continue to educate."

The expressed that the new software developed to aide due process will enable users to get their procurement plans, which used to take about three months, documented within two hours. He, however, said that this would require the users to have knowledge about its operation to achieve.

Meanwhile, immediate past Head of Service, Steve Oronsaye, has charged the Bureau to make its reports non-conforming public as a way of increasing the compliance level.

Oronsaye observed that public officers, who blame their inability to achieve high budget implementation on the complexity involved in due process, are lacking in character.

He said:  "Although some efforts were made by the Government of the day through its four-year National Development plan of 1970-1974 to engender economic growth, the process of awarding contract actually encouraged corruption and other related economic ills.

"Unlike her contemporaries of the 1960s such as Malaysia, South Korea and Singapore, Nigeria is yet to shed the toga of underdevelopment and poverty.

"Back to 1999, many Nigerians believed that the inability of successive administration to significantly improve the standard of living of her citizens and provide the basic needs of society was closely linked with the inability of the country to manage its resources prudently and efficiently.

"There was also the consensus of opinion that the single most important impediment to the development of Nigeria as a nation was corruption in all ramification" Oronsaye said.

Source: New Public Procurement Module Underway