Citing Drawbacks in Implementation of Capital Projects, Lawmakers Mull Amendment to Procurement Act
James Emejo
Following widespread complaints over the increasing frustrations encountered in trying to comply with the provisions of Public Procurement Act (PPA), lawmakers yesterday restated the need to take another look at the regulation with a viewing to shortening the rather lengthy process of implementation.
Chairman, House of Representatives Committee on Works, Hon. Toby Okechukwu (PDP, Enugu), said the long process required to comply with the act was hurting the country’s development aspirations and needed a review.
Speaking during the committee’s routine oversight function to the Ministry of Power, Works and Housing, the chairman further directed that the rehabilitation of the badly damaged Port-Harcourt-Aba road be put on the priority list of projects to be undertaken by the ministry.
Essentially, government agencies as well as contractirs have decried a situation whereby despite the late passage of annual budgets, the cumbersome and long processes of implementing the PPA had negatively affected the implementation of capital votesleading to poor performance of the budget.
A Certificate of No Objective is a critical requirement from the Bureau of Public Procurement (BPP) before any contractual procurement could be fulfilled- but the process had been seen as too cumbersome and defeatist.
Yet, it remained one of the critical tools deployed by government to fight endemic corruption in the contractual system.
It came as the Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Mr. Babatunde Fashola, yesterday said the federal government’s currently contractual liabilities stood at about N2.79 trillion.
He had bitterly complained that the procurement process constituted a major challenge to growth and development and needed to be shortened as well.
He noted with concern that even though the 2017 budget was passed in June, theministryhashadtocommence long procurement processes, some of which are yet to be completed, thus delaying payments to contractors.
He said contractors were being owed the sum of N265.7 billion for completed projects but are yet to be paid, stressing that most of them had borrowed funds to implement works with the believe that government would pay.
According to him, with more capital releasesfromgovernment, a100percent performance of capital budget was feasible, having currently achieved about 77 percent performance.
Nevertheless, the lawmakers further grilled the minister over the implementation of the N3 billion omnibus budget (emergency contract) approved after the passage of the 2017 budget.
It was unanimously agreed that the emergency contract vote helped cushion the effects of unforeseen occurrences which affected the lives of Nigerians including bridge collapses, erosion among others.