FG okays N1.6bn for e-government procurement

The Federal Executive Council Wednesday approved N1.6bn for e-government procurement.

Director-General, Bureau for Public Procurement, Mamman Ahmadu, announced this to State House reporters after the FEC meeting.

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Ahmadu said the adoption of e-government procurement would reduce corruption to the barest minimum as the human interface within the process decreased.

He said: “E-government procurement has the potential of improving procurement process, eliminate corruption and reduce the leak time in the procurement process itself.

“There have been a lot of complaints about the long time it takes to go through the due process.

“With the establishment of this, we will reduce that time.

“It also removes subjectivity from the process.

“There have been lots of complaints about subjectivity in the approval process, that will be dealt with squarely when it is eventually launched.

“E-government procurement is a global trend and from the research carried out by the World Bank, it had been established that countries that have taken off with e-government procurement have witnessed exponential economic growth and they have stimulated ICT in those countries.”

The Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Isa Pantami, said the FEC also approved the national policy on virtual engagements in federal public institutions.

It’s a joint memorandum between Ministry of Communications and Digital Economy and the Office of the Head of Civil Service of the Federation.

Pantami said: “In January 2020 as we all know, the world had been taken by surprise with the emergence of COVID-19 in which the World Health Organization declared it as a global health challenge.

“By 11th March 2020, WHO declared it as a pandemic and that COVID-19 has disrupted the world and the way we conduct our activities and now virtual engagements are becoming the new normal.

“It is because of this that we came up with a memo that will institutionalize virtual engagements in federal public institutions in order to make sure that even after COVID, virtual engagement is recognized by the Federal Government of Nigeria as a medium of communication.

“It is because of this we came up with this memo.”