Managing Director of the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) Malam Abdul Salam Mohammed has advocated for a provision in the Public Procurement Act which would grant special exemption to the agency in its procurement system.
Malam Abdul Salam made the plea in Lagos last week at a meeting with members of the House of Represntatives Committee on Public Procurement who were on an oversight visit to NPA.
“We are in a unique industry with our own peculiarities. The provisions of the Act did not take into cognisance our peculiarities. I will recommend that a special exemption is granted to the Authority, as done to some other government agencies, because of the nature of our operations”, appealed.
According to him, the peculiarities of the operations of the agency has made it imperative to seek for special exemption under the procurement act, as done to some other government agencies in the country.
Commended the enactment of the Federal Government’s Public Procurement Act, Abdusallam said that the provisions of the new law are presently most needed at this stage of the nation’s economic development, but cautioned that bureaucracy in execution could frustrate the laudable objective of the Act.
On the implementation of the provisions of the Act by the Authority, Malam Abdul Salam explained that as a new government policy the management has sensitized its workforce on the need to maintain strict adherence of the provisions of the act in all procurement process.
Additionally, he said, the organization has put in place all the stipulated requirements for the implementation of the policy. These requirements he explained, include the establishment of a Procurement department headed by General Manager, establishment of a Tender Board, and the composition of a Procurement Planning Committee.
In his response, chairman of the Committee, Hon. Yusuf Maitama Tugga regretted that prior to enactment of the Act, Public Procurement was a drain pipe in the nation’s economy.
He said the Committee strongly believes that the first step to checking corruption in the system is to sanitise the public procurement system.
Hon. Tugga However admitted that being a fairly new law, there was need to disseminate appropriate information on the provisions of the act to ensure its familiarity provisions amongst stakeholders.
He said even though the Committee, in conjunction with some government agencies and some civil societies have been educating the general stakeholders on the provisions of the Act, the committee has continued to monitor the procurement procedure of all the government agencies under its jurisdiction
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