DIRECTOR GENERAL OF BPP – EMEKA EZEH
The Director-General, Bureau of Public Procurement (BPP), Mr Emeka Ezeh, has said that 156 contractors are being prosecuted for violating the procurement law.
Ezeh, who made the fact known in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja on Friday, said the infractions ranged from forgery to tendering of fake documents.
The director-general said such contractors must have been cleared illegally by government officials in the Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) to carry out jobs.
He warned that government officials who accepted incompetent contractors would be prosecuted.
“Naturally, the contractors go to various government MDAs because they are the ones that process their documents.
“All the government officers involved have been invited for questioning and possible prosecution.
“Already established rules for administrative and criminal breaches will be followed in their sanctions.
“The EFCC, ICPC will do the investigation to establish the culpability or otherwise of the officers involved.
“So depending on its findings, they will be prosecuted accordingly”, he said.
Ezeh said breaches of the procurement act were often caused by ignorance and as such BPP had set up a training school to educate key officers of MDAs on the right procurement processes.
He said “5,000 procurement officers and stakeholders have received training from us so far.
“We do this because we believe that the understanding of the rules makes it easier for people to get the job done.
“So after understanding the rules and if they still find a way to sidetrack them, they are on their own.
“But we will continue to encourage people to do the right thing”.
Ezeh said that the training was at no cost to the MDAs/
He said the procurement training school catered to different sectors from oil and gas to agriculture.
He said that as part of efforts to ensure good procurement practices, MDAs were encouraged to establish a department of procurement headed by a director.
“Since MDAs began to set up departments of procurement, there has been improvement in procurement procedures.
“There has been so much improvement in terms of not just the saving of money but in terms of compliance”, he said. (NAN)
by Greenstarnetwork admin..
No comments:
Post a Comment