By: Mohamed M. Sesay
During the launch of the 2023 First Quarter of the Procurement Price Norm, the Chief Executive Officer of the National Public Procurement Authority (NPPA), Ibrahim Brima Swarray, has on Thursday the 26th of January 2023, denounces procurement practitioners who have been very negligence of their job.
The Chief Executive Officer Ibrahim Brima Swarray, confessed that they as procurement practitioners have not done well in the last four years in order to see how they can match up to expectation. He said he is not happy with the Audit Report adding that, the 2021 Audit Report depicts that Procurement Practitioners are not doing their jobs adequately. He therefore, encouraged every procurement officer to be reading the procurement guideline coupled with other regulations governing procurement processes.
Ibrahim Brima Swarray continued that even the assessment report from NPPA unearthed so many odds happenings within the procurement system in various MDAs. He said few months ago, he brought procurement officers together in order to discuss the procurement code of ethics but only few procurement practitioners were in attendance and made valuable inputs.
Ibrahim Swarray reminded that plans are in speedy progress to formulate the Procurement Code of Ethics which would be a law governing all procurement officers. He said once that Code of Practice is enacted into law, it would now serve as a legal instrument for procurement processes. He added that years in years out, grave issues are raised in the Audit Report concerning bad procurement processes. He also encouraged Procurement Practitioners to take active part in the draft stage of the procurement code of ethics.
He furthered that the new price norm is 25% irrespective of the instability of prices in the market. He encouraged all and sundry not to see the price norm as the property of NPPA. He said the price norm is geared towards protecting procurement practitioners wherein, they can use it to defend themselves when necessary.
“So have time to go through the new price norm, have time when doing your work to use the price norm, and have time to contribute to it. There are items that are commonly used items that are not captured in the price norm. So it is the responsibility of you the practitioners to bring it to the notice of NPPA in order to escape further embarrassment in the Audit Report”, he advised.
The Procurement Director in the Ministry of Finance Fodie Konneh, said the launching of the price norm has been consistent for the past four years. He added that the 2023 Price Norm is unique especially when there is instability of price for commodities. He acknowledged that the level of volatility of prices currently and added that, if the price norm is not developed, it would make the work of Procurement Practitioners very difficult. He admonished all that the price norm for the first quarter is very important and would help to stabilize prices.
