The Director- General, Bureau of Public Procurement, Mamman Ahmadu FNIQS, has appealed to the African Development Bank to act quickly and support Nigeria’s power sector, because according to him, this will add value to the society.
He made this appeal while receiving the Bank’s delegation who were in his office, on Appraisal Mission Program for the Economic Reform Program.
Shedding more light on the challenges in the sector, he stated that, the capacities of power generation is said to be at 28,000 megawatts, transmission at 10,000 Megawatts and distribution at 4,000 to 5,000 Megawatts, which is insufficient to the populace.
He disclosed that the projects that come to the Bureau are largely Transmission Lines and Substations, due to the fact that generation and distributions are private sector driven.
In addressing the issue of procurement in power sector, the Director General said, Nigerians are anxious to get solutions on power especially in the area of power Generation, Transmissions and Distribution, adding that, procurement challenges in energy sector is the issue of vandalisation, insufficient funding and calls for the protection of power assets to prevent further risks.
Ahmadu stressed that, the review of the 2007 Public Procurement Act will add value to the society, improve efficiency and transparency in procurement.
He revealed that the review of the Public Procurement Act 2007 received inputs from different stakeholders and expressed hope that the proposed amendment will take care of sustainable procurement, E-procurement and adequately take care of preferential procurement for Gender, Environmental and SMEs amongst many other issues .
Mr. Ahmadu also said, the Nigerian Open Contracting Portal (NOCOPO) has been enhanced for analysis by procurement officers who submit data, civil society bodies, citizens engagement and stakeholders, for increased disclosure of procurement information, pointing out that, over 400 MDAs have been granted access to the portal.
Earlier, the leader of the team from the AFDB Dr. Patrick Owuori said, their visit was to take an overview on procurement landscape, quality operations which focuses on energy sector, public finance and expenditure to enable the AFDB intervene in the challenges for a sustainable development in Nigeria.
Their visit he said, will also extend to the Federal Ministry of Finance, Federal Ministry of Power, National Power Training Institute of Nigeria (NAPTIN), Development Bank of Nigeria (DBN), Nigerian Electricity Management Services Agency (NEMSA), Federal Inland Revenue Services (FIRS), Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Auditor General for the Federation, Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) etc.