Fed Govt saves N457.96bn from contract frauds

The Federal Government  has saved an estimated total of N457.96 billion from checking contract frauds through its procurement reforms in the past two years.

This was contained in the 98-page Transformation Agenda: Review Progress report for the period 2013 to 2014 presented to the public by President Goodluck Jonathan as part of activity marking the 2014 Democracy Day celebration in Abuja.

The report, which highlighted the achievements of the administration in the past one year, broke down the savings from the procurement reforms into N400 billion in 2012 and N57.96 billion in the year 2013.

The government explained that it embarked on the reforms to address the issues of contract costs inflation, proliferation of projects, lack of procurement plans, poor project prioritization, poor budgeting processes, lack of competition and value for money in the award and execution of government contracts.

The report said: “Under the reform, all contracts must be awarded through a due process laid down by the Bureau of Public Procurement (BPP) including advertisement, pre-qualification, invitation to tender, technical and financial bid process opening of tenders and evaluation process, to determine the company/organization that is best qualified for the contract.

“This reform is being sustained through strong political and leadership support to the BPP which has resulted in a gradual reduction in the cost of public expenditure and improved competitiveness in the award of public contracts.”

To consolidate on the gains achieved on the reforms, the report said that government has established the Public Procurement Research Centre at the Federal University of Technology, Owerri (FUTO) to support research on all aspects of public procurement and related subjects and to implement training of procurement officers.

The BPP, the report, said also signed a cooperation compact with the United Nations Office on Drug and Crime (UNODC) late last year towards strengthening its anti-corruption efforts in the country.

It also said that through the cooperation of the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC), the BPP in 2013 sent more than 50 companies to Independent Corrupt Practices Commission (ICPC) for investigations for attempting to secure government contracts with forged documents or made false claims about their competence and capacity.