The Minister of Information and National Orientation, Alhaji Mohammed Idris, has accepted the partnership request from the Bureau of Public Procurement (BPP).
Idris gave the approval when the Director-General of BPP, Dr Adebowale Adedokun, paid him a courtesy visit in Abuja.
The minister commended Adedokun for reducing the time for procurement process at the bureau to 20 working days, adding that this was innovative.
“I think BPP is showing us the way that things can be done in a transparent, accountable and efficient manner.
“We sincerely feel happy and great that someone like you has been appointed to this position.
“We are going to work with you to deliver on the mandate of the Renewed Hope Agenda of President Bola Tinubu.
“I am pleased and note in particular your strategy to use procurement to reduce poverty in the country.
” I think this is key.
“Before now, people see procurement process or what they do at BPP as a stumbling block to getting contracts, supplies or whatever.
” I think that the procurement process that the BPP has put in place now will bring efficiency.
“On the issue of asking us not to vet, actually, we don’t really vet here.
” We only rearrange. It is not the responsibility of the Information Ministry or anybody producing any journal to vet anything.
“The agents, user, ministries, and agencies themselves know what they want.
” If they know what they want, someone should not tell them how they want it,” Idris said.
The minister stressed that what was important was to ensure that needs were in line with guidelines set up by government to ensure transparency, accountability and efficiency.
“The Ministry of Information and National Orientation will help to propagate your new strategies and innovations at the BPP.
” We can also do it via the regular ministerial press briefings.
“Before now, issues of procurement have been shrouded in some form of mystery.
” I am glad that you are unravelling this now, making it public. There is really nothing to hide.
“So our job is actually intertwined.
” While you are working to ensure efficiency in the procurement process, we are also working here to see that we give timely information and also help people to understand what you are actually doing.
“We have platforms like the News Agency of Nigeria, Nigerian Television Authority, Voice of Nigeria, Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria and the National Orientation Agency.
” You can leverage on them to propagate your good works,” Idris said.
Speaking earlier, Adedokun, who was accompanied by his management staff, said the visit was to inform the minister of the change at BPP.
“We are here to tell you that we are a tool for good governance.
” BPP is an instrument that can deliver timely and completed projects in any sector.
“BPP is an institution that plays a critical role in ensuring that every single vision under the Renewed Hope Agenda comes to reality.
“We see our responsibility not only to award contracts; in fact, our responsibilities
are about 19 or more that the law allows us to perform.
“So, we are determined under our leadership to promote good governance and ensure value for money, fairness, accountability and give
opportunities to all levels of bidders in this country.
“We intend to work closely with the media and this wonderful ministry to propagate all what government wants us to do by ensuring that procurement itself, which is the heartbeat of good governance, is allowed to thrive.
“We want to deliver to Nigerians a procurement process that will reduce poverty and improve work practice.
” This is a good procurement process that will improve employment generation and attract Direct Foreign Investment,” Adedokun said.
He also said that BPP would migrate to electronic procurement to make the process easier.
“From 2025 budget, we intend to ensure that all procurement processes are completed within the first half of the year.
” Together with the Information Ministry, we can go to the field to check what is being implemented.
“So, it is no longer going to be people coming to us by the month of November to look for Certificates of No Objection; that will not happen again.
“Everybody must complete their procurement processes within the first half of the year to enable us account to Nigerians.
“We also intend to deploy categorisation and classification of consultants, contractors and service providers.
” What that means is we intend to grow the local contractors; we want them grow by moving from one grade level to another,” he said.(NAN)
