As part of the effort of government to further enhance transparency in public procurement, the Bureau of Public Procurement (BPP) embarked on the first phase workshop for the categorization and classification of contractors doing federal government projects in Abuja.
The exercise, in line with the transformation Agenda of the administration is meant to initiate a database for all contactors doing government business in order to place each contractor, consultant and other service providers in the different categories of service they belong in a bid to initiate transparency within the system.
The Director General of BPP, Engr. Emeka Ezeh said that having recently celebrated a decade of the public procurement reform, the time has come to move to the next level in public procurement which is to register, classify and categorize contractors and consultants working, or intending to work on the Federal Government projects. This he said is part of the Bureau’s statutory responsibility.
The DG further highlighted that the purpose of the exercise is enshrined in Section 5(h) of the Public Procurement Act 2007, which expects the Bureau to maintain a National Database of the particulars of Federal Contractors and Service providers for ease of information sourcing and analysis in conformity with the needs of the new information age.
Engr. Emeka Ezeh said that the centralized database and categorization of contractors and service providers is anticipated to enhance efficiency, save cost in public procurement, improve budget implementation, and increase professionalism.
In this same vein, Emeka Ezeh reiterated the fact that with the categorization and classification of contractors, the cost of doing business in Nigeria will reduce through the elimination of multiple registration and prequalification in the various MDAs, coupled with better grouping of the contractors, consultants and service providers, also with a view to provoking increased discipline in federal procurement processes. However, only competent and capable contractors, consultants and service providers would become identifiable and considered for deserving jobs.
The Chief Economic Adviser to the President, Dr. Nwanze Okidegbo stated at the workshop that this development would further enable Nigeria to consolidate on the gains of the reform and indeed help the administration in its transformation agenda.
