From Christiana Gokyo, Jos
Accountability Lab Nigeria has held a stakeholder 3-day workshop to brainstorm the challenges facing the procurement sustainability and transparency of the procurement process in Plateau State.
Speaking to newsmen after the 3-day workshop at the Crispan Hotel, Jos recently, the Monitoring Evaluation and Learning Associate Accountability Lab Nigeria, Alfred Agu observed that, they have seen over time that we have for runners in the north pushing for procurement sustainability and transparency, especially in their processes and practices.
According to him, we are here together with state actors and non-state actors to talk about challenges, to talk about possible solutions and recommendations that will be identified in this conversation with all stakeholders in the consultative meeting here.
While explaining that, some of the challenges they found are a lack of citizen engagement and poor use of data by the citizens, the lack of technical capacity and the procurement officers not having the tools to efficiently do their jobs.
We ultimately that there are some political interferences in the processes this is why, we are here to put our minds together to look for core and next steps on how we can find solutions and also make recommendations to the government.
Mr.Agu further explained that, the first year when we got to plateau we had a sit down with the governor and also we will have a sit down after this with the governor and assured that the government access has not been that of friction we’ve had open access over the years.
“I am sure that whatever recommendations we have here is because we have meaningful feedback from stakeholders and non-stakeholders, this will be drafted together to put forth to the government so they can be policy reformation, they can be a push for gender-responsive procurement that is having ladies on the table,
and I’m sure that definitely, we will get good feedback or commitment from the government.
Also, the Acting Director General Yabilsu Michael Dogo, of the Bureau of Public Procurement in the state, said we are here basically for stakeholder engagement as it concerns open contracting from what we have discussed so far if implemented to the latter plateau state will be great in terms of open contracting.
We at the Bureau of Public Procurement are not without challenges, challenges range from office accommodation to mobility and other office equipment, we have written to the government and the government is already taking necessary action to litigate it. he stated.
While saying that, it is unfortunate that of recent the office was over flooded rain, we have also written to the government for a quicker solution to the office accommodation problem, we are hopeful that in few days to come to this problem is amounted as we believe in the present administration, we believe in their mantra of talk and do we will continue to give them the necessary support and we will continue to do our best to move plateau state forward.
According to him, naturally, every government expenditure has a budget and it is expected that the budget if followed and implemented to the latter the provision of the budget for 2024 as I have seen it is a good one and if funds are available.
“I am sure and I believe that the governor can deliver, all that is required is for the citizens to give him the necessary support, to also cooperate with him and understand the situations on the ground so that together we can move this state to greater heights,” he stated.
Also, a Civil Society Worker Derekson Nanman Gono said, we are here as the non-state actors based on an engagement with the state actors from different ministries, departments and agencies as well as the Bureau for Public Procurement, on an engagement to ascertain the level of open contracting in plateau state and we will say that the engagement had started about three years ago basically under Accountability Lab Nigeria under the UNDP program and we will say that at some level we have gotten to an extent of progress.
According to him, in the last year to an extent we have retrogressed based on the fact that the improvement processes that we initially started three years ago have suddenly gone back to manual and it is worthy of note.
He called upon the state government to do the needful most, especially as part of facts facts-finding mission we discovered the bureau itself is actually in a state of total emergency both the facility and the technical staff even staff are not adequate to oversee the function of the bureau.
One of the major things that we want to also use this opportunity to call on the government is the fact that it is not known anywhere that a Bureau which should be an authority of itself is still under the supervision of the parent Ministry, this is going to at some point or majorly going to affect the effective services of the agency.
He further called on the governor because he has been open to Public Procurement Processes through open contracting to also see that a lot has to be done to station the state way for public procurement to an enviable level that will be an attraction to other states and other people to come and learn from.
Aishatu Sabo a Staff of the Islamic Counselling Initiative of Nigeria said her major take on this workshop, the public must have an awareness of what the Bureau for Public Procurement is, and if they don’t have that awareness then certainly don’t think there is anything we can do about it.
So it is very important for the people to Know about it and then also try to go through it and learn how it works and also try as much as possible to locate all this work that the government is doing so that they will know if the progress is working or not.
