By: Thaimu Bai Sesay
At the Certification Ceremony of 103 Government Institutions, the National Public Procurement Authority (NPPA) on Tuesday 21st March, 2023, in a conference, assured to take robust action against institutions that had failed to submit their procurement plans for review.
Amongst the 103 Government Institutions certified were the Parliament of Sierra Leone, Office of the Vice President, Immigration Department, RSLAF, Police, USL, Njala University, WAEC, Statistics, NIC, SLRSA, HRMO, PRA, ECSL, Port Authority, Makeni City Council, Kenema City Council, etc.
The Chief Executive, National Public Procurement Authority, Brima Swarray in his statement, statistically intimated that in their initial engagement, they invited 160 institutions. Out of that number he said only 129 decided to come for review. Swarray affirmed that after a careful review process, they were able to certify only 103 institutions saying the remaining 26 amongst the 129 that also came for review were not certified because they were not valid.
The Chief Executive NPPA uncovered that there were 32 institutions who thought they were above the law.
He said those institutions had not brought their procurement plans for review. Amongst those institutions he identified were the BSL, NRA, GVWC, SLCB, NATCOM, and others which were not identified at the conference. He emphasized that if they did not bring their procurement plans, they would not be reviewed. He called on these institutions to follow the law and do what is right.
As the NPAA buys any newspaper that comes out on daily basis, the Chief Executive, NPPA affirmed that they were aware of all the adverts put out by newspapers. He said most of those adverts were not channeled through the legal procedures but went through the back doors. He expressed a strong warning on those institutions to desist from such bad practices.
He went on by addressing newspapers who he said they complained few days ago for not receiving adverts. ‘And if you are insisting on institutions to advertise, and then you think they can call you at the back door and just talk to you, then you do it for them, you are killing your own business,’ he emphasized.
For newspapers that received and hid adverts, he expressed that it was not expected from them, as institutions identified to be the voice of the voiceless.
The Chief Executive, NPAA described the practice of such newspapers, regarding adverts as corrupt activities.
He assumed that if such cases were presented to the Anti-Corruption Commission, both that newspaper person and the institution in questioned would be considered as victims.
He assured that the next time such instance occurs, both the newspaper and that institution would be taken to the ACC and he would go to the court to testify against those victims.
He elucidated that the procurement process was done to ascertain and account the number of activities undertaken by an institution in a year. Simply explaining how the process oath to be done, he admonished institutions to number their procurement activities. As failing to do so would equally affect their work, he notes that they would stand a chance of losing money that supposed to be part of their budgetary support.
Extending the period to a week time, he appealed to institutions to endeavor and submit their procurement plans for a proper review process. He strongly reiterated that institutions who would fail to do so within the stated timeframe would not only have to review themselves, but would also have him to contest. Kailahun District Prioritises Construction of Bunumbu College to Sierra Leone’s President Julius Maada Bio, Who Says Education is Key to National Development.
Bunumbu Town, Peje West Chiefdom, Monday 20 March 2023 – His Excellency President Dr Julius Maada Bio has met stakeholders of Kailahun District, east of Sierra Leone, who call for the reconstruction of the Bunumbu Teachers College, one of the most outstanding teacher training colleges in the country before the war.
Former Chairman of the Kailahun District Council, Kekeh Sahr Lamin, recalled that the college was completely burnt down during the country’s civil war of eleven years (1991 to 2002), putting an end to tertiary education for residents in that part of the country.
He said that before 2018, the district had 855 teachers, including 231 women and 624 men and further revealed that since 2018 the district had had 1,768 teachers, including 530 women and 1,238 men.
He told the president that a total of 1,500 teachers had benefited from training on a code of conduct, 500 were trained on professional standards and a total of 10 chiefdoms were benefiting from the school feeding programme.
“His Excellency, the district has a total of 217 preschools, of which 61,823 children are benefiting, with an increase of 3,812 in preschool enrollment, 32,344 in primary schools, 10,780 in junior secondary schools, and 13,347 in senior secondary schools. Before 2018, the district had a total of 161 approved schools, but since your government was elected, the number has increased to 275. In the last five years, a total of 18 schools have been constructed in the district by the government,” he said.
Paramount Chiefs of Yawei, Penguia, Pejei West, Peje Bongre, and Jahn Chiefdoms, also pleaded with President Bio to speed up the construction of the Bunumbu Teachers College. They said their children had always traveled long distances to be educated. They also appealed for the construction of the road linking the district with Kono and major roads to other chiefdoms and important towns in that part of the country.
Paramount Chief of Jahn Chiefdom, PC Musa Foday Gbogboto II, while updating President Bio in Gbeika, said that that was the first time in the history of their chiefdom a sitting president had visited them. He added that the township had pipe-borne water, a functional junior secondary school that was yet to be approved and a cocoa processing center.
He said they were in dire need of a preschool, a youth center, and a bigger health center.
President Julius Maada Bio assured the Kailahun people that all arrangements for the construction of Bunumbu College had been completed, adding that before the elections, the engineering team would visit the Paramount Chief for the commencement of work on the site.
He also assured of the construction of the road linking Kono with Kailahun district and other major roads in the district and announced that the First Lady, Her Excellency Fatima Maada Bio, would construct the preschool in Jaa, engage with the women in addressing their major concerns.
He also revealed that he would construct youth centers in some parts of the district.
