NEFGAD Charges BPP To Exercise Effective Oversight After FEC’s Directive

The Network for the Actualisation of Social Growth and Viable Development (NEFGAD), a frontline public procurement advocacy group in Nigeria, has commended President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and the Director-General of the Bureau of Public Procurement (BPP), Dr. Adebowale Adedokun, for their relentless efforts in revolutionising public sector procurement in Nigeria.

NEFGAD made this known in a statement released to newsmen through its Country Head of Office, Omoniyi Akingunola, in Abuja on Thursday.

This follows the directive by the Federal Executive Council (FEC) on Wednesday, instructing ministers to forward comprehensive lists of projects from agencies and parastatals under their supervision to the BPP for scrutiny and analysis, ahead of submission to the President. FEC also directed mainstream government departments and agencies to give preference to made-in-Nigeria goods in their procurement processes.

The council’s decision came after a presentation by the BPP Director-General, Dr. Adebowale Adedokun, to President Tinubu at the FEC meeting.

By approving the BPP’s request to serve as the coordinating center and clearing house for all federal procurement, President Tinubu, as the Chief Executive Officer of the “consortium” called Nigeria, has fulfilled his part of the national procurement development bargain by granting full regulatory authority to the BPP, in line with extant regulations and the provisions of the Public Procurement Act, 2007.

Public procurement, NEFGAD noted, is a key driver of national development, often deployed by serious-minded nations to improve citizens’ quality of life through infrastructure and social services. With this renewed vigour, the BPP is now expected to exercise its regulatory powers more efficiently and effectively for the overall benefit of the Nigerian people.

NEFGAD stressed that the President’s approval is a testament to the confidence reposed in the current BPP leadership and urged the Bureau to reciprocate this trust by ensuring public procurement becomes more competitive, transparent, and accountable, with deliberate policies aimed at delivering more projects that have a direct impact on citizens’ lives.

The group further stated that the 2025 Appropriation Act should serve as a litmus test for the BPP, ensuring that budget line items without the legally mandated needs assessment are embargoed or completely removed. Needs assessment, it said, is the most fundamental test of integrity for public projects. Any project lacking this basic legal requirement, NEFGAD argued, can only serve as a drainpipe to private pockets and offers no real value to the collective good of the people and the nation.

NEFGAD also urged the Bureau to leverage its new status to ensure that procuring entities adhere strictly to their establishment mandates by preventing MDAs from undertaking projects outside their statutory responsibilities.

The group called for a total overhaul of the public contracting system to onboard more contractors, especially small and medium-scale companies across the country, and to put an end to the endemic contract-grabbing practices where public contracts revolve around a small circle of contractors year after year.

Given the country’s current financial outlook, NEFGAD advised that project prioritisation is crucial, urging the BPP to ensure that only projects with direct benefits to the people are prioritised and funded.

NEFGAD Charges BPP To Exercise Effective Oversight After FEC’s Directive is first published on The Whistler Newspaper