The Director-General of the Bureau of Public Procurement (BPP), Mr. Emeka Muoma Ezeh, on Friday announced that of the 308 projects for which requests were made in the total sum of N1.7 trillion, it approved 184 requests valued at N1.2 trillion in 2013.
The BPP DG, who disclosed this at the 2014 Retreat for Federal Permanent Secretaries organised by the office of the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation in collaboration with BPP at Lagos said the BPP saved the Federal Government over N58 billion as a result of the prior review interventions of 184 requests approved, while it granted Certificates of No Objection valued at N1.12 trillion that would have been spent on unapproved projects.
Ezeh stated that the 2013 round of procurement audits revealed some cases of non-compliance with the Public Procurement Act 2007, which was being referred to EFCC and ICPC for further investigation and possible prosecution. He accused public servants as being hinderances to the implementation of government policies.
He said, for the country to benefit from the ongoing procurement reforms, there is also need to strengthen the newly established procurement cadre in the civil service; organise capacity building, training and professional certification of procurement officers; create procurement units where they do not exist to ensure uniform implementation of the PP Act and easy monitoring of compliance, use of approved standard bidding documents, improve accountability, integrity and transparency.
