The Public and Private Development Center (PPDC) has urged Ministries Departments and Agencies (MDA’s) to comply with the Bureau of Public Procurement (BPP) directives contained in a guideline on the conduct of emergency procurement.
The Communications Lead of the Center, Mbanan Mku, said on Friday in Abuja that the BPP directive is a commendable effort to improve transparency and accountability in emergency procurement amid Covid-19 among the MDAs.
According to her, this is coming at a time where citizens and civil society are demanding data on emergency procurement and one of the ways to guarantee a transparent process is by being guided by open government principles and open systems.
She said Nigeria as a member of the Open Government Partnership (OGP) is in the best place to open up its government processes as a way of meeting the demands of its commitment to the fiscal transparency and anti-corruption component of their action plan.
“The regulations set by BPP require all procuring entities to prepare Procurement Plans for all projects that specifically respond to the COVID-19 pandemic. These Plans should be uploaded into the Nigeria Open Contracting Portal (NOCOPO) where it will be accessed by the BPP.
“They have also mandated procuring entities to ensure that no reduction of values or splitting of procurement is carried out such as to evade the use of the appropriate procurement method or thresholds. We believe that Civil Societies such as ours can play a valuable role in helping the government in tracking and monitoring these processes to ensure that resources are allocated efficiently. While emergency procurement are needed, they should be made publicly available and accessible,” Mku said.
She therefore urged all MDAs who are currently carrying out emergency procurement to implement these orders as PPDC will be actively involved with monitoring compliance to the given mandate.
