Expert Faults Nigeria’s Public Procurement System
An expert in procurement has faulted the procurement system currently being used by the Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) in Nigeria, saying it does not allow any interested person to openly and confidently connect various stages within a public contracting process to eventual service delivery.
The expert also admitted that the zero budgeting system introduced by the present administration was a right step in the right direction.
The Coordinator, Public and Private Development Centre (PPDC), Ms. Seember Nyager stated this in Abuja at a workshop organised for government officials on effective and efficient procurement system.
According to her, “a significant part of the challenge of our procurement system is enabled by the obscure nature by which contracting information is often presented.
“The unwillingness of the procurement system to allow any interested person to openly and confidently connect various stages within a public contracting process to eventual service delivery is by far, the biggest enabler of inflated, duplicated contract and consequently inefficient public service delibery., ”she added.
Nyager noted that the current system made it very difficult sometimes to link a budget line, even a procurement data and eventually to the public service, because they are out in different format, and they are not well presented.
“That makes life difficult for everyone, not just the beneficiaries of the project. But also people in public offices, because the budget implementation report will only be based on how much has gone out, it will not be based on what the project has done.
“But we need to move forward, we need to be able to link public expenditure to public services and if we are not able to do that there is a very huge disconnect ,” she explained.
Nyager said she was excited about the zero budgeting introduced by the present administration, noting that it was the way to go, as budgeting would now be according to relevance.
“You are not budgeting because this is what the budget was last year, this fit right into it, it complements the system of zero budgeting, in fact, it complements all the other reforms around public expenditure, I think that what it does is that it is a step further that we can prevent things from happening rather than reacting to things that happen.”
Abu revealed that due to the success recorded on the project through the first mover states, seven new states including Plateau, Oyo, Sokoto, Delta, Gombe, Kano, and Kogi have all indicated interest and are being considered.