March 10, 2021
By: Aruna Kamara (Bo)
The Procurement officer at the Bo City Council, Gabriel Mambu has expressed dissatisfaction over poor decentralization at the National Public Procurement Authority (NPPA).
He made this statement at a one day sensitization on the electronic Government Procurement (e-GP), which took place at the Gallinas Paradise Conference hall in Bo on Wednesday, 3rd March 2021. The sensitization attracted participants from all works of live including the Ministry Department and Agencies (MDAs).
Mr. Mambu claimed that when documents are taken to the regional officer in Bo, it is not looked into except they are being referred to Freetown and this has made the regional offices not useful.
He expressed the hope that the e-GP will come and change the narrative of the public procurement in the country.
The Regional Manager of NPPA in the south, Brima Frank Lamin reacted to the allegation that he has been helping staff of MDA’s who take their documents to the regional office.
Director of Legal and Corporate Affairs of the National Procurement Authority, Barrister Francis M. Gbaya in his presentation said that “NPPA is a statutory body established by Parliament in 2004 through the Public Procurement Act, 2004 having perpetual succession, body corporate that can sue and be sued and that Public Procurement Act 2004 repealed and replaced by the Public Procurement Act, 2016.”
He said NPPA is charged with the mandate to disseminate information about and promote awareness of public procurement system, publication of Annual Procurement Report, Publication of quarterly price norm and publication of quarterly Bulletin.
Barrister Gbaya spoke about the Legal Provisions of e-GP in the Act- Section 28 (2) noting that “the Authority may authorize procuring entities to use other forms of communication, including electronic communication, for publication of invitations to bid, transmission of bidding documents, submission of bids, conclusion of contracts, and payment but any such other means of communication shall be such as can preserve a record of the content of the communication, provide an adequate level of security, and does not unduly restrict bidders’ access to the procurement processes and is not inconsistent with this Act or any regulation made under it.”
According to him, e-procurement system means the use of electronic system, by procuring entities in conducting their procurement activities for the procurement of goods, works and services required by these entities.
He said that Pursuant to paragraph (b) of subsection (2) of section 14 and Subsection (2) of section 28 of the Act, public procurement shall be done by electronic procurement through an electronic procurement portal.
Notwithstanding sub regulation (1), the Authority, he said, may on request and on the justification for not using the electronic system, give authorization to a procuring entity to conduct procurement activities, without using an electronic procurement system and that the Authority may from time to time through the issuance of circular direct the mode for the phased implementation of the electronic procurement.
Alie Bangura, working for NPPA while presenting said that public procurement reforms has been going on since 2002. The key achievements are: public procurement law with its accompanying regulatory suite of documents, the creation of a regulatory authority, the creation of a cadre of procurement officers and the establishment of a procurement directorate.
Highlighted the challenges of Procurement issues in Sierra Leone , which he said included the poor capacity of procurement units, lack of compliance with procurement laws and regulations, very poor procurement planning, contract splitting is rife, contract management skills are very poor and only 25% of government contracts are completed on time, records management is abysmal, Management and supervision of the procurement cadre is poor, Career development is an issue, bid preparation skills of local suppliers needs to be strengthened, undue procurement delays negatively impacts on contract execution, interference by others outside the procurement sphere poses a serious risk, corruption manifests in the form of collusion, unfair disqualification of bidders.
All of these challenges, he said, erode bidder confidence in the transparency of the process resulting in reduce competition and higher prices.
The Director of Capacity Building at NPPA, Alieu Moigboi said everybody is key in ensuring that e-GP messages is cascaded to the every facet of the society, pointing out that there is sensitization strategy that they are rolling out and that they expect the media and civil society to come on board to make sure that the people understand the electronic procurement.
The Chairperson of the Bo District Human Right Committee, Jarrai Barrie called on NPPA to organize training for both the media and the civil society to properly understand the electronic procurement systems which will help bring transparency and accountability in the procurement processes in the country as a huge amount of the government funds go into procurement.
Adams Tommy from the pubic financial management Project in the Ministry of Finance said that e-GP has come to stay and called on all the stakeholders to ensure that they disseminate the message on electronic procurement.
Daniel Moijueh who made statement on behalf of the Head of NPPA said that e-GP will have challenges but assured the participants that they can overcome the challenges.