President of Chartered Institute of Purchasing and Supply Management of Nigeria (CIPSMN), Alhaji Ado Jibrin on Monday called for the inauguration of the National Council on Procurement in line with extant laws.
Alhaji Jibrin gave the charge in Abuja, at the opening of the 2019 batch-B Mandatory Proficiency Development Programme (MPDP), with the theme: ‘Ensuring compliance with statutory provisions of the Public Procurement Act, 2007 and leveraging on procurement professionalism and best practice for the growth of Nigerian economy,’ organised by the Institute.
While expressing, noting that most of the corruption cases being prosecuted by various security and anti-corruption agencies are procurement-related, Alhaji Jibrin on the need to ensure full implementation of the provisions of the Public Procurement Act without further delay.
He maintained that the non-constitution of the National Council on Procurement was a gross violation of the Act.
“The Institute has written several times reminding the government that there’s need to establish the National Council on Procurement because that is the base. If you establish the Council, the Council will checkmate all these types of problems and come out with the policies.
“Now you don’t, so what policy will you bring when you don’t have a Council that will discuss the problems that will arise. So if the Council is there when problems come, the Council will sit down, diagnose the problems and give solutions,” he noted.
According to him, “Nigeria is losing a lot of money” to procurement-related activities being carried out in the country, adding that: “if not exaggerated, I can say 30% of what has been earmarked for procurement are beige wasted.”
While stressing the need to address the myriad of challenges facing the country including corruption, Alhaji Jibrin said: “There is no better time to discuss this than now because procurement is deliberately manipulated and circumvented especially in the public service to the benefit of few individuals.
“There is no gain saying that some people are held bent in annihilating purchasing/procurement profession and professionalism in order to continue with the mess,” he alleged.
While noting that Nigeria procurement and supply chain professionals throughout the country are faced with a lot of challenges, he, however, expressed optimism in the capacity of CIPSMN to surmount the problems.
“Procurement and supply chain management has always been abused by sector specialists’ shadow description as the ‘job for everybody’ for some years, but we as professionals know it is not so as we believe ‘buyers are born but professional buyers are made’.
“Meanwhile from its likely operations management or manufacturing origins, procurement and supply chain management has accelerated into becoming one of the key business of good governance,” Alhaji Jibrin noted.
In his remarks, Mohammed Aliyu, IMPDP Registrar/CEO observed that the progress of any nation requires a commitment to quality education, human capacity development and training.
“This is the underlying philosophy of the Chartered Institute of Purchasing and Supply Management of Nigeria with specific reference to the yearly mandatory Proficiency programme organised by the Institute in compliance with the requirements of the CIPSMN Establishment Act, 2007.
“Frankly speaking, procurement and supply chain deals with the sensitive areas required for national development equation in a country like Nigeria, at this time of dwindling resources, corruption in high places and many other ugly vices facing our economy today,” he stressed.
Alhaji Aliyu who explained that the mandatory proficiency development programme will enhance the “delivery capacity of members wherever they find themselves and strategically prepare them for future challenges anchor on core professional values as well as ethical codes”, harped on the need for efficient and effective planning and utilisation of scarce financial resources.
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