To give credibility to the services of the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC), its Commission to Director General/Chief Executive Officer, Aliyu Aziz Abubakar has charged members of the management to ensure
strict compliance with the provisions of the country’s Public Procurement Act (PPA).
The NIMC boss gave the charge in Lagos on Monday at the opening of a 3-day Interactive Workshop on Procurement and understanding of the World Bank procurement process, procedures, and Ecosystem Enrolment readiness.
The workshop was organised by the Nigeria Digital Identification for Development (ID4D) Project, in collaboration with NIMC.
A statement jointly signed by the Nigeria Digital ID4D project Communications Manager, Walter Duru and NIMC’s Head of Corporate Communications, Kayode Adegoke, the NIMC CEO said the event was put together to enhance the capacity of the Management team on the provisions and application of the country’s public procurement law.
Abubakar spoke on the need for similar trainings to be held more frequently to ensure improved capacity of team members on contemporary issues in public procurement.
On the workshop objectives, the Project Coordinator, Nigeria Digital Identification Project, Musa Odole Solomon described the meeting as geared towards updating participants on contemporary issues in public procurement.
He said there was the need for understanding the meeting point between the country’s procurement laws and the World Bank’s procurement regulations.
Also speaking, Director, Legal and Regulatory Affairs at NIMC, Hadiza Dagabana called for the amendment of Nigeria’s Public Procurement Act passed in 2007.
“We are in 2023. A lot of things have changed over the years and there are so many gaps in the Act. It is time for an amendment to ensure the provisions aligned with the current realities,” she said.
She described the workshop as impactful, urging the participants to put into practice the knowledge acquired.
In her “Overview of Public Procurement Act (2007) and its convergence with the World Bank Procurement Regulations 1for Borrowers,” Ag. Director of Procurement at the NIMC, Nkoyo Iwok, called on public institutions in Nigeria to embrace transparency and accountability in all their transactions, reiterating that sanctions apply for violations of the public procurement law.
Iwok identified some common offences in procurement as “bid rigging, collusion, splitting of contracts, procurement fraud, altering procurement documents, willful refusal to allow the Bureau and its officers access to any procurement records and using fake documents.
She highlighted some of the sanctions for the violation of the Public Procurement Act to include imprisonment, upon conviction, among others.
On the convergence between World Bank Procurement Guidelines for Borrowers & Nigeria Public Procurement Act 2007, Iwok stressed that both documents emphasise the importance of procurement planning.
On transparency and competition, she explained that “both the World Bank Procurement Guidelines and Nigeria’s Public Procurement Law promote transparency and competition in procurement processes.
She argued while there were some similarities between the two procurement frameworks, it was important to note that the World Bank Procurement Guidelines were generally more comprehensive and detailed than Nigeria’s Public Procurement Law.
As such, she stressed that borrowers in Nigeria that were subject to the World Bank Procurement Guidelines would need to ensure that their procurement practices were consistent with both frameworks.
In his presentation on Proposal and Bid Evaluation procedures/Project Risk Management and Control strategy, the Procurement Officer, Project Implementation Unit of the Nigeria Digital ID4D, Ibrahim Abu, argued that procurement was infused with numerous risks, even as he made a case for proper risk management practices and tactics to reduce same.