Open Contracting, e-Procurement’ll Eliminate Corruption in Award of Contracts, Says BPP

Oghenevwede Ohwovoriole in Abuja

The Bureau of Public Procurement (BPP) has disclosed that if the Bureau is able to fully implement open contracting and e-procurement in the country, it will reduce corruption in the procurement system.

Director General BPP, Mamman Ahmadu stated this in Abuja at the world anti-corruption day organised by the Inter-Agency Task Team (IATT) in collaboration with the European Union (EU), Rule of Law and Anti-corruption (ROLAC) programme and the United States Embassy.

Represented by the Director Energy, BPP, Mr. Babatunde Kuye, the bureau said, “If we do Open Contracting and e-procurement system successfully, in the procurement circle, corruption will almost be eradicated and that is an assurance from BPP. Once we get it right, we will not be talking about corruption in a way that is significant in Nigeria.”

BPP stated that “public procurement is an avenue where most of the corrupt practices in public organisations are perpetrated as can be seen in all the trials of corruption going on”, saying that if the nation can improve in everything that can prevent corruption, it will solve most of the problems that it has.

“Essentially, the responsibility falls primarily on BPP, preventing corruption, so that we do not spend money fighting corruption after they had already gotten away with the proceed of their corruption”, the Bureau added.

Ahmadu also stated that the Bureau’s position had always been clear which is that the best way to fight corruption is by prevention, adding that the Public Procurement Act of 2007 made provisions for prevention of corruption in public procurement in the country.

He further stated it is cheaper to prevent corruption than to go through trials and prosecutions.

“Our position on anti-corruption has always been clear; the best way to fight corruption is to prevent corruption. It is cheaper; it does not come with the emotion of people having to go through trial, prosecution and later prosecution”, he argued.

“Since 2007, the federal government established the Public Procurement Act, which is an instrument in preventing corruption, in public procurement.”

On funding, he said although the Bureau is getting funds from the federal government, it is not enough and that more funds would be needed to execute the Bureau’s plan in eliminating corruption in the public procurement process in Nigeria.

BPP continued, “That is why we are pleading with government to further support us. They have been supportive; but the resources are lean. We have electronic procurement project, which we are pursuing, which will make contract process more transparent and we are also working on Open Procurement System; we are also working on the capacity of procurement officers to know what to do to prevent corruption.

“We are also working on contracts database in Nigeria, which will make all contractors visible. So, with this database, the issue of ghost contractors, briefcase contractors that we do not know, would be unmasked. We have been assured that in the coming years, we will be getting more resources to incorporate these instruments in our desire to prevent corruption.”

On development of contractors’ database he said having created a database of government contractors which currently has 50,000 registered, it is only those that are registered on the database that will be able to do government contracts when it is finished and approved, saying that the registration on-going.

He added, “It has already commenced, as we talk; we already have 50,000 contractors who have registered on this system. Once, it is fully finished and approved, if you are not on that database, you may not be able to do any contract with government.

“And that database is going to be an open database available to anybody, anywhere in the world. What this means is that if you win a contract, you will be able to go that system to know if you have the capacity to win that kind of job. It is all about transparency and accountability.

“It is not going to be closed; it is open but what it means is that if you are not there, government is not going to patronise you.”

On the legality of the database, he said it is backed by law, the 2007 Act, stating that “it is already in the provision of t 2007 Act, which has come into effect since 10 years ago. It is in line with the provision of the law.”

“One of the advantages is that it will make the procurement process open. And also, no contractor will get government contract unless it has demonstrated that in the past it has done similar jobs; it has also fulfilled all requirements in terms of payment of tax and due process.”

The BPP director also spoke about inflation of contracts, stating that the Open Contracting System would take care of that because all contracts will be open to scrutiny and it will be easy for people to identify an inflated contract since all the quotations for the job by different contractors will be available to the public.

He also added that though the steps towards achieving this goal are not easy, he said the BPP hopes to fully achieve its target by the end of 2018.

“It is an aggregate of instruments and by the time we aggregate them, we will see a lot of reduction in contract cost. Acquiring these steps have to take time. I don’t see any obstacle beyond funding, and by the end of next year, we are certain that with the necessary support, we will see these coming into being”, he said.

“But how long we get to that will depend on how much resources and human capacity we develop. If we continue in this trajectory towards the end of next year, the issue of corruption in procurement will be a different story.”