Lawmakers in Nigeria’s House of Representatives say corruption will continue unless there is a complete reform of the public procurement process.
The lawmakers at the Lower House of the National Assembly made the observation at a meeting with officials of the Bureau for Public Procurement on the impact of procurement reforms in Nigeria.
They maintained that Nigeria could not continue to be defrauded of billions of dollars by a few people encouraged by the failure of the enforcement agencies and the laws of the land.
The House Committee Chairman on Public Procurement, Wole Oke, and the House Minority Whip, Yakubu Barade, gave their thoughts on the reform process.
They said that frequent breaches of the act had put Nigeria in an era of corruption, with failure of enforcement by agencies.
To change this trend, a Public Procurement Scholar and Consultant, Dr. Sope Williams-Elegbe, stressed the importance for legislative, institutional and organisational changes in public procurement reforms.
The Public Procurement Act of 2007 was enacted to sanitise the public contracting system in Nigeria and eliminate corruption in public procurement.
