AdminNigeria’s House of Representative Committee on Public Procurement on Monday, 15 July, directed the Bureau of Public Procurement (BPP) to work with the Chartered Institute of Purchasing and Supply Management of Nigeria (CIPSMN) for the proper implementation of the Public Procurement Act 2007.
The event which was the Public Hearing on a Bill to amend the CIPSMN Act 2007 received overwhelming support from over 90% of the participants in attendance.
Join our WhatsApp ChannelChairman, House of Representative Committee on Public Procurement, Rt. Hon. Uyime Idem, and 15 other members of the Committee attended the event which had the government, private and the nonprofit sectors in attendance.
In addition to the change in name, the Public Hearing reviewed and discussed the grey areas hindering proper implementation of procurement process in Nigeria. Committee therefore seeks an amendment to the CIPSMN Act 2007 to change the word in the name “purchasing” and replace with the word “procurement” to align with current realities in the practice of procurement across the globe.
Supported by many stakeholders in attendance, the meeting frowned at the unhealthy developments over the years in the management of procurement process in the country that has been responsible for it’s poor implementation, low capacity and uncontrolled corruption on the part of public officers.
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Some of the key stakeholders that spoke in favour of the Bill include the Strategy Implementation Office for Presidential Executive Order 5, led by its National Coordinator, Engr. Ibiam Oguejiofo, Prof. James Akanmu of the University of Lagos and representative of the National University Commission (NUC).
Others from the government and private sector include representatives of the Nigerian Society of Engineers (NSE), Federal Ministry of Finance and a team of professionals from the Institute led by the President and the Registrar.
Lead civil society actor in the fight against corruption and misprocurement, Mohammed Bougei Attah, National Coordinator of Procurement Observation and Advocacy Initiative made a presentation about capacity gaps and the level of corruption that is traced to procurement mismanagement.
He specifically reacted to the presentation by the representative of the Acting Director General of the Bureau of Public Procurement that harped on the functions of the Bureau to include training.
Reacting, Attah informed the audience that as against the common practice by the BPP, the law as contained in Section 5 (k) of the PPA 2007 only mandates the Bureau to “organise” training for would-be procurement officers and not to “conduct” training for them and then issue certificates of attendance to qualify them as procurement officers in the ministries, departments and agencies of government.
He further said that due to inappropriate applications of the procurement process by unqualified personnel, corruption has been on the increase instead of reducing.
The responsibility to train and certify procurement officers and professionals both in the public and the private sectors rest in the mandate of the CIPSMN.
The Bill which received overwhelming support of participants at the Public Hearing also cleared the misconception about the non-inclusion of other professional bodies in the Act wherein the law recognised them as ‘Sector Specialists’.
To justify the need for Part 1 Section 1 of the Bill, the Zonal Coordinator, North Central of the Institute, Dr. Abdul Mamman, said it is currently a global phenomenon that procurement is the term used everywhere as most countries have migrated from purchasing as a word to procurement. To support this claim, PRADIN explained that the CIPS United Kingdom (UK), Institute of Purchasing, USA and the India Institute for Supply Chain Management that changed their names in the past years were all in response to the current realities. He argued that Nigeria should not be different from other countries of the world.
The Bill which seek amendment to sections 1, 2 and 5 of the Principal Act reads as “An Act to amend the Chartered Institute of Purchasing and Supply Management of Nigeria Act 2007 to be in tandem with what obtains in the procurement professional practice across the globe and for other Related Matters,” HR 346 of 2024.
The Bill which was sponsored by Deputy Minority Leader of the House of Representatives, Hon. Ali Madami, passed second reading on 28 February this year.
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