The Federal Government on Monday said it would step up the fight against abuse of the procurement process by contractors handling projects for its ministries, departments and agencies.
The Director-General, Bureau of Public Procurement, Mr. Emeka Ezeh, said this in Abuja during the opening ceremony of the 2013 stakeholders’ workshop for the MDAs.
The DG accused the MDAs of injecting other materials into procurement documents after the original plans had been submitted to the bureau.
This practice, he added, made the procurement process to be cumbersome.
Represented by the Director, Special Procurement Unit, BPP, Mr. Ayo Aderibigbe, Ezeh said the bureau would take the country to a level where its public procurement process would be among the best in the world.
He said Nigeria’s development would be achieved if corruption, mainly taking place through shoddy procurement practices, was eliminated.
Ezeh said, “It is expected that in the near future, corruption in public procurement would have completely given way to open, transparent and competitive federal procurement system that is integrity-driven and that upholds spending within budget and ensures speedy implementation of projects in order to achieve value-for-money outcomes without sacrificing quality and standards.”