Institute Raises The Alarm Over Extant Laws Violation On Procurement Practice

The president of Chartered Institute of Purchasing And Supply Management of Nigeria (CIPSMN), Alhaji Sikiru Balogun has raised the alarm on the continuous violation of the extant laws guiding the public procurement process in Nigeria.

Balogun stated that there has been a disregard of the laws and best practice in procurement which is a very crucial aspect of the use of taxpayer’s money and how its spent through public procurement and supply chain management process in the country.

Speaking in a press conference in Lagos, the CIPSMN president alleged that the director -general of the Bureau of Public Procurement (BPP), Dr Adebowale Abraham Adedokun, has flagrantly violated the Public Procurement Act 14 of 2007 and that of CIPSMN Act 21 or 2007, which has continually gone unchecked since there is a no Council of the BPP yet to be inaugurated by President Bola Tinubu, that should do oversight function for the federal agency.

The procurement professional body also pointed out that, the BPP has no business training of officials in procurement agency as was done when the Procurement Agency UK was brought to train officials and issue diploma certificates to BPP officials in what goes against the CIPSMN Act 21 or 2007, which is solely that of CIPSMN according to the law.

“By virtue of the provisions of Public Procurement Act 14, 2007 and the charter the install purchasing and Supply Management Act 21, 2007 the limit and scope of these bodies are clearly spelled out in terms of the scope and limitation of each body, but the view of public procurement at the federal level has consistently violated the law of the Land, which requires urgent attention by the government,” Adedokun said.

The CIPSMN which urged the federal government to ensure best practices in procurement and “to achieve the foregoing objectives, government must make sure that they direct all the agencies, parastatals, ministries, departments among others to keep to their core competent area spelled out in their establishment Act especially, in the conduct of the current Director General of the Bureau Of Public Procurement who, has turned himself to jack of all trade in terms of his continued violation of various sections of CIPSMN Establishment Act and extant laws of the country ar the expense of National Economic Development, which has continued to cast a worrisome and debilitating spell on the qualified procurement professionals in Nigeria, regarding the professional practice.”

Registrar of the professional body, Prof Aliyu Mohammed noted that, Nigeria has lost in not having core professionals in procurement handling the helms of affairs as the country could not host the regional program of the professional body and it had to go to Ghana.

Mohammed stated that procurement or procuring entities should endorse local content policy of government, except “where it cannot find local people to do that job, or you can extend it to foreign land and the local people should be in charge to supervise that project. In a situation you go and bring somebody, brought somebody from abroad to come and train professionals in the country.”