By Correspondent in Abuja.
To effectively tackle corruption eating deep into the fabric of public sector in Nigeria, the federal government must set up National Council on Public Procurement,the President, Chartered Institute of Purchasing and Supply Management of Nigeria, Alhaji Jubrin Ado, has advocated.
Ado,who made the call while speaking with the Journalists on the sideline of the Annual General Meeting (AGM) of the institute in Abuja, urged President Muhammadu Buhari to expedite action on the establishment of such council to complement his fight against corruption in the country.
He noted that a properly constituted and inaugurated National Council on Public Procurement would further strengthen and institutionalize the fight against corruption, which had become a recurring decimal to the development of Nigeria.
The establishment of the council, he further argued, would ensure that the Bureau of Public Procurement carries out its functions,based on transparency, competition, integrity, and ensuring bets value for money.
“It will also help check fraudulent practices in the award of public contracts through inflation of contract costs, poor project prioritisation, poor budgeting process, and other manipulations of procurement and contract award processes.
”The council, which will be made up of men and women of proven integrity will ensure due process in the award of contracts, eliminate corrupt practices in the procurement process,” he said.
Ado also called on President Buhari to ensure that all professional members of the institute work as procurement officers to rid the public service of corrupt practices.
”That is the only way out, you cannot allow anybody to work as a procurement officer just because he has gone through one or two weeks training and then call him a professional, it doesn’t work like that.
”We train people at least a minimum of 18 months, after you have graduated, at least for 18 months and, some who went to polytechnic with HND are also given another one year training to become professionals.
”You cannot compare that with one who just learn one or two weeks training and said he has become a professional.
”That is why we are having problem in the country particularly with regards to procurement.
”Every scandal in the country is being linked to procurement, billions of naira and dollars are being looted because of procurement problem,” he said.
He insisted that for the country to move forward and ensure transparency in all transactions, every procurement should follow the due process.
Speaking, the Registrar of the institute, Alhaji Mohammed Aliyu, called on President Muhammadu Buhari to strengthen procurement in the public sector so as to fight corruption effectively.
Aliyu said that almost every corrupt practice in the public sector had links with procurement hence the need to strengthen the sector as it was important to economic growth.
He expressed concern that procurement, on which budgets are anchored, had been neglected for long and suggested that professionals should be engaged in all procurement processes
