—As BPP saves ₦1.1trn in 1-yr, DG vows to finish ‘enterprise as traditional’ in contract
By Johnbosco Agbakwuru
ABUJA — PRESIDENT Bola Tinubu has authorized a debarment coverage to sanction contractors who execute poor-quality jobs or abandon tasks.
The Director-Normal of the Bureau of Public Procurement, BPP, Dr. Adebowale Adedokun, revealed this in an unique interview with Vanguard in Abuja.
“Debarment coverage means if a contractor does a nasty job, if a contractor fails to ship high quality work, that contractor may be blacklisted,” he mentioned.
“As soon as a contractor who has collected authorities cash refuses to do the job, or does a nasty job, or didn’t full the job, we’ll suggest blacklisting of that firm—not solely in Nigeria however internationally.”
He burdened that whereas erring contractors shall be punished, those that ship high quality work shall be inspired, pointing to ongoing infrastructure works as examples of improved requirements.
“Please take a journey to Lagos-Calabar; you will notice high quality of job. Take a journey to Abuja-Kaduna-Kano; you will notice good job. Check out the continued work between Mararaba and Keffi. Have a look at electrical energy; in the present day, there’s quite a lot of enchancment,” he mentioned.
“It is because the whole lot that they need to purchase, each tools they need to purchase, they have to present us specs.”
Trying forward, he mentioned the BPP will intensify help for native content material and weak teams in step with Tinubu’s Renewed Hope commitments.
“We are actually going to implement the Nigerian First coverage as directed by Mr. President. We’re going to introduce community-based procurement,” he introduced. “And with all of this, the ladies affirmative procurement—these are new issues that the President needs to unleash in procurement to the nation in order that the youth, the ladies, the weak teams may have sure tasks given to them.”
He expressed optimism that these measures will stimulate fast change and assist sort out poverty.
“You will notice a fast, huge transformation in the best way Nigerians do issues and to scale back poverty,” he mentioned. “Let’s put Nigerian individuals first, and with that, we will collectively obtain the dream of a Nigeria that appears pretty much as good as Dubai.”
Adedokun disclosed that the company saved the Federal Authorities about ₦1.1 trillion inside one yr by blocking inflated contract sums and implementing tighter scrutiny of public tasks underneath President Bola Tinubu’s Renewed Hope Agenda.
He mentioned his first precedence on assumption of workplace “a bit over a yr in the past” was to make sure that procurement not served as a bottleneck or a conduit for corruption however as an “enabler” of transparency and worth for cash.
“Once I resumed, what I observed was that the President has outlined quite a lot of initiatives underneath the Renewed Hope Agenda,” he defined. “The query that got here to me was: how will I guarantee full implementation of Mr. President’s Renewed Hope Agenda? The most typical factor is to be sure that procurement doesn’t change into a bottleneck.”
He mentioned procurement had lengthy been perceived as “a stumbling block” to governance, each at residence and overseas, a notion he got down to change instantly.
“What we did was to make procurement an enabler, an instrument for transparency, accountability, and worth for cash,” he mentioned. “I got down to make BPP a responsive company that the President and his workforce can rely on for transparency and accountability, and to make sure that cash allotted for presidency tasks is correctly accounted for by making certain that we don’t inflate contracts and we don’t give contracts to the fallacious contractors.”
To ship on this mandate, the BPP DG mentioned he created a devoted Value Intelligence Unit to benchmark venture prices and cease overpricing.
“One of many key issues I did was to arrange what I name the Value Intelligence Unit. This unit was primarily designed to benchmark the price of tasks,” he acknowledged. “We began to make sure tasks are benchmarked, costs are honest, they don’t seem to be over-inflated, and in addition to be sure that contractors get worth for his or her funding.”
Based on him, this tighter scrutiny has produced large fiscal positive factors.“In a single single yr, a complete sum of ₦1.1 trillion has been saved,” he disclosed. “That is even exterior different tasks that we’re nonetheless collating, to simply give an thought of what Mr. President has completed in procurement within the space of stopping corruption.”
Illustrating the impression, he defined how practical pricing frees funds for extra tasks.“If you’re to construct a hospital for ₦10 billion, due to the prevention mechanism Mr. President allowed us to introduce, we did benchmarking and now came upon that that hospital can’t be ₦10 billion however most likely ₦9 billion,” he mentioned. “That ₦1 billion that has been saved can now be used for different tasks.”
He cited a paramilitary company that was capable of purchase extra automobiles after BPP reviewed its procurement request.“With out the value intelligence prevention mechanism, they requested for 10 operational automobiles at so-and-so value; that’s what they’d have gotten,” he mentioned.
“However as a result of we did the prevention mechanism—value intelligence—we have been in a position to avoid wasting cash. So quite than 10, they received 15.”
Based on him, these are sensible examples of “what it means to forestall corruption and to make sure there’s worth for cash.”
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