By Aaron Ossai
The Bureau for Public Procurement, BPP is strengthening its audit systems in a bid to tackle corruption in the procurement system in the country, Its Director General, Dr. Adebowale Adedokun has said.
Adedokun who stated this when he appeared before the House of Representatives Committee on Public Procurement to defend the Bureau’s 2025 proposal however decried the budgetary ceiling placed on the agency, which he feared would hamper this objective among other strategies it plans to adopt to improve the system.
He said during the course of budget planning and preparation, the Bureau proposed the total sum of N72, 775, 250, 713, however the Budget Office allocated a ceiling of 3, 283, 021, 838. This sum, he noted, was in exclusion of Personnel budget of N649, 558, 451.59.
On the 2024 budget performance, he said a total sum of 2, 234, 785, 641 was allocated out of which N2, 110, 061, 164 was utilized.
He said the capital allocation of N289, 418, 688 for the year was inadequate to achieving any meaningful reforms and addressing the core mandates that will realize effective contract administration.
He added that only the sum of N184, 024, 690 of the sum for capital expenditure has so far been released.
Speaking further, Adedokun said the agency’s 2025 budget primarily focuses on addressing its office accommodation challenge, address monitoring and evaluation of projects throughout the nation, deliver an electronic procurement system to the country as well as build capacity.
While expressing gratitude to the Committee for the support it had shown the Bureau, he decried the paucity of funds and sought its assistance to get more money.
The DG said, “We also realise that we need to also intensify our audit exercise. It is better to prevent than to prosecute. Under our watch our strategy is to ensure we prevent misuse of funds through real time IT tools in procurement audit.
In his response, the Chairman of the Committee, Hon. Unyime Idem said they were mindful of the ceiling imposed on the agency and would do something about that.
“I want to assure you that what you have seen before us is the proposal, so we would engage the committee in charge of appropriation to ensure that those inadequacies in terms of funding are addressed,” he said.
Idem said the BPP remains a vital institution for the ability of any government to achieve good governance and deliver the dividends of democracy.
He said if the BPP improves its productivity in playing its full role; it will improve the quality of governance, procurement and project management.
