BPP to Digitise Public Procurement Process

BPP to Digitise Public Procurement Process

Emma Okonji

The Director-General, Bureau of Public Procurement (BPP) Mamman Ahmadu, has said the agency will deploy the use of modern technology in public procurement to further drive reform.

According to him, “the digital lane is the way to go in public procurement process as it also affects other areas of human endeavours.”

Ahmadu, who made the disclosure at the third zonal stakeholders’ workshop on the Development of the Category Matrix for the National Database of Contractors, Consultants and Service Providers (CCSP) in Lagos recently, stated that Nigeria has also joined the rest of the world to ensure that best global practices in public procurement process is strictly adhered. He emphasised that going digital would allow for more participation, efficiency and transparency to ensure that the public procurement reform receives the needed attention and to deliver ultimately for the good of the country.

Ahmadu, who was represented by the Head of Regulations and Database of the BPP, Mr. Aliyu Aliyu, further emphasised the need for all the professional bodies to be fully involved in the reform process.

He said the Public Procurement Act (PPA, 2007) Sections 5J, 5Q and 6J, emphasise the need for classification and categorisation of federal contractors, consultants and Service Providers, in order to enhance specilalisation, high performance in public procurement and reduce cost of tendering.

Former Senior Special Assistant to former President Olusegun Obasanjo, Professor Kunle Ade–Wahab, who was Head of the defunct Budget Monitoring and Price Intelligence Unit (BMPIU) which later metamorphosed into the BPP, who spoke at the event, said the registration and categorisation exercise were designed to help produce a template to ensure that contractors and consultants are able to exercise their core competence for the purpose of right placement in whatever class or category they belong to.

“In this regard, objectivity will be a watchword and the rules of the game declared without any shade of ambiguity,” Ade-Wahab said.

The Managing Director of the Association of Consulting Engineers of Nigeria (ACEN), Abolaji Ogunsanya, also lent his voice to matter, saying there is need for the inclusion of indigenous Nigerian Engineers in the development of the public procurement process for the sake of infrastructural development of the nation.

The General Manager, Lagos State Bureau of Public Procurement, Fatai Idowu Onofowote, emphasised the fact that public procurement has come to stay in Nigeria and that the business of government must be done through ‘due process.’

He stated that Lagos State was happy to align with the federal government in the use of modern technology in the development of the Categorisation Matrix.

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