There was a mild drama at the House of Representatives on Thursday when the Deputy Chairman of the Committee on Public Procurement, Uju Kinsley, disagreed with the Director-General of the Bureau for Public Procurement, Mamman Ahmadu, that N50m was enough for audit of the bureau’s procurements in 2022.
The DG, who appeared before the committee for budget defence, stated that the N50m budgeted for procurement audit and its112 staff strength was enough for the BPP.
Kingsley, however, insisted that the amount was grossly inadequate for the operations of the bureau.
Ahmadu noted that while there were competing demands for government resources, the BPP was comfortable with the N50m proposed for procurement audit, adding that the bureau did not need to increase its staff strength, stressing that it would amount to a waste.
The lawmaker, however, insisted that the budget was rather too small for the BPP.
Kingsley said, “From here, you gave us a nominal role of 112, out of which 91 are direct staff of the BPP, one DG and 20 staff from the poll. I understand that we have about 805 agencies that you oversight. Do you think that 91 staff (members) is enough to do the job if you are regulating 805 agencies; because if you do the arithmetic, it would mean that one person, including your drivers and security men, will oversight eight agencies. I am of the view that moving forward, this agency requires more staff (members).
The DG, however, noted that in addition to the staff on BPP’s nominal roll, the bureau has procurement officers in the main civil service.
Insisting on the proposal, Ahmadu said, “We are not short of the people that are doing the work. But in the BPP headquarters, the people that carry out reviews and issue certificates of no objection are the ones we captured in our nominal role because they are directly under our payroll.”
