The Chartered Institute of Purchasing and Supply Management of Nigeria (CIPSMN) has urged the Federal Government to inaugurate the National Procurement Council to give the country the lead in effective procurement.
The North Central Zonal Coordinator of the institute, Mr Abdul Mamman, made the call on Saturday in Abuja at the 2022 Annual General Meeting of the institute.
According to him, the country will benefit from the inauguration of the council as it will help in eradicating corruption associated with procurement process.
“Nigeria is set to benefit if it really allowed what to be done but what we are seeing now in Nigeria is that the economy has been wobbling.
“The government is trying but whatever good intention you have if the structures to implement the plan are not well endowed in the knowledge area, definitely complaints will come from people you are targeting.
“The National Council of Public Procurement which was established since 2007 as the first chapter of the act has not been inaugurated.
“If it is inaugurated, the function of the council is about policy enunciation and policy making to track the activities of those who are ensuring compliance with the Public Procurement Act, that is the Bureau of Public Procurement (BPP),” he said.
Mamman said that the non-inauguration of the council had given rise to non-professionals taking charge of procurement deliveries in government agencies which, he said, had often times produced inefficiencies.
“What do you see, the same bureau went ahead to get a kind of approval we cannot interpret from some persons who would later gather some public personnel for training.
“They identify people from MDAs, write to accounting officers, ask them to nominate persons to be trained for three weeks and the moment it is done then you push them into manning a very serious and important unit in their respective places of work.
“Every year, the National Assembly will vote money for such assignments in terms of budget implementation but ineffective procurement practice will also lead to ineffective budget implementation because it runs pari passu,” he said.
The newly elected President of the institute, Alhaji Sikiru Balogun, promised to engage state executives to take their leading role in procurement.
“I want to make sure that all the jobs being taken away from us by the BPP will be taken back and there will be adherence to our existing procurement act.
“In fact, there are a lot of things that will make us move forward and we are planning for them. You know being a president of an executive body is a team job. My team will still come back, we’ll plan and make sure things are right,” he said.
To curb corruption, the outgone President of the institute, Ado Jibrin, said that it behooved on professionals to ensure that the right things were done when it comes to procurement.
Jibrin said that unless procurement officers were allowed to do their jobs, rather than bringing in nonprofessionals to man procurement departments, the country would not make any impact.
“To be candid, one of the major problems why we are having this crisis is because the professionals are buyers and procurers are not being used in the public sector.
“There are procedures and that is what we want the government to take note of even at the BPP. We are not quarrelling with them. They have their act, while we have our acts,” he said.
