Nigeria’s Federal Executive Council has approved N1.6bn for the establishment of e-Government Procurement Platform to address corrupt practices in government’s procurement system.
Also, it approved $2m contribution for the West African Power Pool.
As one of the outcomes of the meeting presided over by President Muhammadu Buhari, the Director General, Bureau of Public Enterprises, Mamman Ahmadu, while addressing journalists, said the platform would help eliminate corruption as well as enhance the country’s procurement process.
He said, “There have been a lot of complaints about the long time it takes to go through the due process. With the establishment of this, we will reduce that time. It also removes subjectivity from the process. There have been lots of complaints about subjectivity in the approval process that will be dealt with squarely when it is eventually launched.”
According to him, the steps taken by the government are in line with current global trends.
“E-government procurement is a global trend and from the research carried out by the World Bank, it has been established that countries that have taken off with e-government procurement have witnessed exponential economic growth, and they have stimulated information and communication technology in those countries.
“It will reduce corruption to the barest minimum because it will reduce the human interface within the process. The overall cost is about N1.6bn,” he explained.
The Minister of Power, Saleh Mamman, who also addressed the journalists on the outcome of the meeting, said about WAPP contribution, “The pool is about having synergy within the West African region. It’s for the generation of electricity of the region, so as to have a more constant and steady power supply.
“It’s like the national grid in Nigeria, so we are going to have a regional grid. It means in case there is a failure in one country, another can supplement. The $2m is a contribution.”
Shedding more light on the electricity pool, the Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, said, “The West African power pool is made up of all west African countries because each member state contributes annually to the cost of power transmission across the pool. Because, the consequence is that if there is a problem in one country it could inadvertently affect the other country.
“It’s a common pool and every country has its own section and our contribution for this year is $2m. It’s not as if we are giving two million dollars to ECOWAS, we are simply paying our own contribution for the transmission from Nigeria to other West African countries and vice versa.”
