A call has gone to governments at all levels to make good use of the Public Procurement Act (PPA), 2007, and the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act, 2011, to prevent further, and control the wave of corruption in the nation’s public offices.

This was the submission on Sunday, by a coalition of Civil Society Organisations (CSOs), at the end of their four-day 2022 Hack Corruption Workshop, jointly organised by the Accountability Lab (AL), Open Contracting Partnership (OCP), and United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Ado-Ekiti, Ekiti State capital.

According to the CSOs, unless the various governments increase the tempo of all enacted laws aimed at fighting corruption, perpetrators would continue to hide on the weak sides or improper implementation of such laws to have their way without being caught or attracting commensurate punishments.

They expressed concern that the laws had been ineffective, while the rate of corruption continues to soar because of the lack of transparency and improper provision of data to the public on contracts awarded by elected and appointed officials of the governments.

The coalition, however, expressed delight that despite the flaws identified in the implementation of the various anti-corruption laws, states like Edo, Plateau and Ekiti should be commended for raising the bar of compliance, describing the development as providing a ray of hope that Nigeria could still get things right in a not too distant time.

One of the speakers, Onyekachi Chukwu, lamented what he referred to as “the mind-boggling corruption” perpetrated by some persons in positions of power, despite having both the Public Procurement Act and Freedom of Information Act in place.

He expressed concern that the laws had been ineffective, and corruption, continuing on the high side.

Mr Chukwu, who spoke on ‘Improving accountability in public procurement, said the enactment of domesticated FOI and PPA laws had failed to stem the tide of corruption in contract awards and other procurements being undertaken in the public sector.

“Public procurement is one of the most important aspects of governance. It is involved in everything the government does, and that is why each state has a Bureau of Public Procurement to vet whatever purchase the government is making to check corruption.

“The bureau participates in contract awards, but the public has not been paying attention to the operations of this office.

“The citizens have failed to engage this office to ensure that accurate data on contracts are made public, in line with Open Contracting Data Standard.

“The public is not well informed about the usefulness of access to data about contracts and procurement. A strict and compliant public procurement must pass through the stages of planning, tender, award, contract and implementation.”

Also, the project officer of Accountability Lab Nigeria, Shinwua Mnenga, revealed that the anti-corruption innovation project in public procurement is carried out by the coalition for openness, using Ekiti, Edo and Plateau States as pilots.

Mr Mnenga added that the essence was to check corruption and impunity by those in leadership positions and allow the running of all-inclusive governance that would benefit all Nigerian citizens.

“Available data indicates that Edo State remains a leading state in Nigeria in open contracting and procurement policy. Plateau state has huge compliance with the policies, with Ekiti not doing badly. They are the three leading states that have domesticated the laws and are doing well in implementation.

“We are using these three states as pilots and engaging in training of partners so that we can come up with technical solutions to addressing existing gaps in public procurement in these three States and others,” he said. 

(NAN)