Perhaps, that was why a World Bank report revealed different lacunae which established nexus between weak public procurement procedures and corruption as well as its far reaching negative consequences on national development.
According to the report, for every N1.00 spent, 60kobo was lost to sharp practices by corrupt officials of government
The report said a whopping $10 billion was being lost yearly to fraudulent practices in the award and execution of public contracts through inflation of contract cost, lack of procurement plans, poor project prioritization, poor budgeting processes, lack of competition and value for money and other kinds of manipulations of the procurement and contract award processes.
The Federal Government initiated the Public Procurement Reform as part of its Economic Reform agenda designed to restore due process in the award and execution of government contracts.
This development informed the establishment of the Budget Monitoring and Price Intelligent Unit, BMPIU, also known as Due Process in 2001 to implement the federal government’s Public Procurement Reform Policy, which was aimed at eliminating or minimising open abuses to known rules, processes and standards in the award and execution of public sector contracts in Nigeria.
The Bureau of Public Procurement explained that due to the growing public demand that the reforms are sustained and institutionalized with legal backing, a Public Procurement Bill was articulated in 2003/2004 by the leadership of BMPIU and presented to the National Assembly. The Public Procurement Bill was thereafter passed by the National Assembly on the 30th of May, 2007 and subsequently signed into Law by the President on the 4th of June, 2007.
The act stipulates that public procurement government agencies should be based on proper need assessment, adequate appropriation, advertisement, transparent prequalification/tender, bid submission/opening, bid evaluation, tender board/FEC approval and project implementation.
The agencies are also expected to provide timely and accurate information to the general public in a way that can enable them to make quality decisions.
There has been a mixed bag of compliance with the provisions of the act by the agencies, some of which play according to unconventional rules culminating in loss in revenue.
Besides, many public institutions are also found wanting in the provision of timely information to the public as contained in the Freedom of Information Act, which also gives people right to access or request information, whether or not contained in any written form, which is in the custody or possession of any public official, agency or institution.
A recent research conducted by an Abuja-based group, the Public and Private Development Centre, PPDC, revealed that while many institutions failed to respond to requests, others delayed longer than necessary in responding to requests for information which the act seeks to place in the public domain.
The report placed the Nigerian Electricity Regulation Commission, NERC, in the lead of the most transparent public institutions in Nigeria.
To get its result, the PPDC said that the surveyed public institutions were ranked based on four criteria which are proactive disclosure, responsiveness to requests for information, the cost of disclosure to the requester and the level of disclosure.
According to the group, of all the public institutions surveyed, none received a healthy report for proactive disclosure of procurement information as their procurement plans were not readily available.
Although the federal budget, advertisements in newspapers are available online, the group maintained in its report that it is difficult to tell whether every procurement process for the year has been advertised when procurement plans cannot be accessed.
The report said NERC and others responded within seven and 14 days to requests for procurement information made pursuant to the FOI Act whilst FERMA responded only once to five requests for information without providing any part of the information sought.
The group explained in the report that the reason for rating transparency levels in the public procurement process has arisen because public expenditure that is budgeted for the provision of public good needs to go through the procurement process.
Besides, the group is of the opinion that public scrutiny at the procurement process stage is valuable to value-driven delivery and performance at the level of contract implementation, adding that the public procurement process is also an important avenue to rate transparency because the information sought is one that is available as long as due process in the award of public contracts has been complied with.
Stakeholders in the nation’s power sector said the current rating of NERC is a pointer to the fact that the regulator has lived up to its billings as a transparent institution, adding that the agency will replicate the gesture in bringing about transparency in management of electricity during post privatisation era of the power sector.
Chairman of the House of Representatives Committee on Reform of Government, Honorable Matthew Omegara, said NERC is the ‘champion of the Freedom of Information law in Nigeria’ having being the first agency to publicly start implementation of FOI law and to make 16 mandatory revelations pursuant to the FOI law in the country.
Commending the agency on the development, Omegara advised other agencies to borrow a leaf from NERC on how best to comply with the requirements of the FOI law.
He said it was in line with the leadership role of NERC in providing free access to information on energy regulation that the committee selected Amadi as a resource person and ambassador of FOI to help enlighten and build the capacity of the MDAs to understand how to use the FOI to engender accountability in public governance.
Chairman of NERC, Dr. Sam Amadi, explained that the idea behind the agency’s transparency is to create an open government because freedom of information greatly improves the quality of governance.
He promised that NERC would mandate tidy up disclosures for all licensees in the electricity industry in order to ensure effective energy audit and ensure quality service to consumers.
He revealed that the most difficult challenge is conceptual hurdle because of the erroneous belief on what disclosure would do to an organization. He argued that an open government is more stable and efficient as feedback from citizens and customers improved organizational processes and outcomes.
Amadi also advised chief executives to realize that without transformation in the corporate culture, it would be difficult for their agencies to make the paradigm shift required to fully embrace the FOI law.
Stakeholders in the power sector are also of the opinion that the emergence of NERC as the most transparent institution in the country is crucial due to the place it occupies in the power sector.
Mr Sunday Adesanya, an energy expert, said as a regulator, the commission has the mandate to carry out important roles as defined in the EPSR Act, 2005, which vested it with the mandate to ensure constant and reliable power supply through appropriate regulations.
He explained that: ’’The commission is also entrusted with encouraging the participation of private investors in the electricity market. It ensures that regulations which encourage profitable pricing and effective competition among market players are developed and implemented while appropriate codes of conduct and rules of engagement are enforced to ensure an efficient and investor friendly market.
‘’The commission is to monitor industry operators and prevent abuse of the market power as well as ensure that consumers fulfill their obligations by paying for power.
According to him, the commission should gird its loin and ensure that it rededicates its efforts in promoting transparency and accountability in the entire value chain of the nation’s power sector, adding that the development is the best way to guarantee investors’ confidence.
During his visit to NERC headquarters in Abuja recently, Chairman, House of Representatives Committee on Power, Hon Patrick Ikhariale, implored the commission to continually be in the forefront of promoting transparency and accountability in the sector.
He also called on the commission to pursue due diligence and transparency in the post privatization of the power sector.
Nigerians are indeed waiting to see how other public institutions in the country would embrace commission’s orientation toward minimizing leakage of funds.
