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Procurement Act Amendment: Don’t open door for treasury looters, NEFGAD warns Tinubu

President Tinubu and NEFGAD boss

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By Taiwo Okanlawon

The Network for the Actualisation of Social Growth and Viable Development (NEFGAD), a public procurement advocacy group has cautioned President Bola Tinubu over his recent directive on the amendment to the Public Procurement Act 2007.

NEFGAD issued this warning in response to the move by the President to amend the Public Procurement Act 2007.

During last Wedneday Federal Executive Council meeting, at the Presidential Villa, in Abuja, President Bola Tinubu had ordered a comprehensive review of the Public Procurement Act in order to align projects cost with the budget heads, and avoid augmentation after the award of contracts.

NEFGAD, in a statement signed by its head of office, Mr Akingunola Omoniyi and made available to newsmen on Friday, in Abuja, urged the President to not follow the advice of some individuals, in and outside the government, who are planning to gain easy access to the Nation’s treasury to perpetrate their illicit financial transactions.

NEFGAD said ‘’intelligence at our disposal shows that the President took that position innocently based of advice from some people who are hell-bent on wreaking irreparable havoc on the country’s treasury’’

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Mr Akingunola argued that ‘’Section 18 c, d and e of the Public Procurement Act 2007 provide a structured and transparent framework that helps to prepare an analysis of cost implication for proposed public projects for accountability and fairness in the allocation of public funds.

“The Act sufficiently imposed stringent guidelines on project costing against undue variations; this is one of the core mandate of the Public Procurement Act serving as a safeguard against mismanagement and corruption.

“Hence, taking away this critical organ will open the door to corrupt elements for arbitrary adjustments and excessive cost overruns, which would undermine the integrity of public procurement processes by delivering more money into private pockets through endless and frivolous augmentation’’

He further said “Despite the regulatory proof against arbitrary projects cost augmentation provided by the procurement Act, these elements have devised scrupulous means of going through budget categorisation in the guise of ‘ongoing projects’. These ongoing projects as a project type in the appropriation Act mostly mean ‘do not touch’ or ‘for the boys’ in typical Nigerian parlance. Therefore, amending the Procurement Act to cater for the appetites of these hungry lions will mean creating a veneer of legality to illegality by opening our national vault to treasury looters and economic saboteurs’’

NEFGAD stated that the problems that created gaps between projects and budget costs leading to augmentation were not the making of the Procurement Act but purely occasioned by inflation and monetary policy fluctuations and more importantly by fraudulent practices of those saddled with procurement functions in connivance with ill-motived actors around the public procurement corridor, once these economic fundamentals and corrupt inclinations are checked, budgetary and procurement costs will automatically converge.

Mr Akingunola concluded that “a mother cannot continue to go to the labour room simply because her children constantly exhibit exuberances. So, curbing deeply rooted corruption in the system and ensuring strict compliance with the extant regulations coupled with strong-willed oversight mechanisms and providing additional training to those involved in the procurement process across the board can achieve better outcomes without compromising the principles of accountability and transparency and or going through the rigour of needless amendments.”