Stakeholders in the South-South and southeast zones on Tuesday commended the Bureau of Public Procurement (BPP) on its review of the standard bidding document.
They made the commendation at the end of a two-day sensitisation workshop organised by the Bureau for South-South and South East stakeholders in Port Harcourt.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the workshop has the theme ”The Development and Revision of Public Procurment and Standard Bidding Document”.
It was attended by more than 200 participants across the zones.
According to Mr Chibuzo Ikwekwue, a Consultant from the A&E Law firm, the workshop has met its target to completely revamp and modernise the current standard bidding document slightly revised 10 years ago to accommidate emerging issues.
Ikwekwue said that some of the emerging issues included those in information technology, issues of health commodities like vaccines, drugs and others.
He said that the framework contracts had increasingly become an important aspect of procurement which was absent in the current standard bidding document.
He also said that with the current review, there would be increase in the value of money and speed in the output of goods, works and services now that the challenges had been addressed.
Also, Mr. Kelechukwu Eze, the Managing Director of IFEKESH Nigeria Limited, commended the management of the BPP on the review, saying that it would ease the way of doing business in Nigeria.
Eze said that procurement of goods in the past had been with a lot of challenges, including difficulties in specifications of the kind of goods that companies wanted which sometimes made them to reject the goods supplied to them.
According to him, the rejection of goods supplied by companies made the suppliers to lose money.
He said, ”This training is an eye opener to us; we have come to know that there are so many things in the procurement documents that we can do without having issues, to get the required specifications by the companies.”
He also said that it was like going through Google to know what such companies wanted, or going through E-commerce website to get the required information to use when bidding.
Eze expressed the confidence that the training would also help their businesses to grow internationally.
He said that it would also open up contacts that might connect them to be one of their Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEM), suppliers in other countries.
”I’m impressed with what Bureau of Public Procurement is doing on the review of standard bidding document.
”I urge the public to follow up with this training in all the states where it’s being held to enhance our production in the country,” Eze said.
Furthermore, Mr Ogolo Iderefa, the Managing Director of AFATECH Integrated System, said that the review of the document offered a solution to numerous challenges faced by contractors in Nigeria.
Iderfa said with the sensitisation of stakeholders in the procurement industry on standard bidding document, contractors would no longer abandon projects in the country.
”When contracts are awarded, after the payment of first tranche, contractors find it difficult to continue with the work because the prices of goods and services become high, you see such projects abandoned.
”We now have the clarity of some clauses in the BPP document that can help us review our agreements with those that contracted the job to us to enable us to continue with the project,” he said.
He said that the training would enlighten more contractors on how to do their bidding to improve and enhance productivity in the country.
Iderefa appealed to the management of Buearu of Public Procurement to spread the sensitisation programme across the country.
Mr Egbodo Peter, another stakeholder from Anambra Bureau of Public Procurement’s ICT Department, also commended the BPP for the review of standard bidding document.
He said that the reviewed document had addressed some of the challenges in procuring of ICT services.
He also expressed satisfaction with the separation of the ICT procurement services from works, goods and services because they were different components.
Similarly, Mr Obinna Okoli, a Procurment Officer in Federal Polytechnic Nekede, Imo, said that the exercise was appropriate.
Okoli said that the review had also addressed some challenges like non consultancy documents which was not in the current document.
He appealed to BPP to create more awareness to the public on the need to use the BPP standard bidding document while doing business.
