By: Mohamed Jalloh
Ibrahim Brima Swarray, the National Public Procurement Authority (NPPA) Chief has revealed to the media and Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) that the Authority has prevented about Le1.6 trillion from being misappropriated by Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDA`s) due to the effective, monitoring and regulatory mechanisms carried out by the institution.
The NPPA chief made the revelation during a capacity building training in procurement organized for journalists and CSO`s at the civil service training college at Tower hill on the 20th December 2022.
“Due to the proactive ways of monitoring and regulating MDAs we have prevented such a huge amount of money from going astray which could have massive consequences for service delivery in Sierra leone”,Mr Swarray disclosed.
Mr Swarray commended the media for playing a great role in publishing what the NPPA does, as according to him, people could hardly know about the activities of the Authority without the indispensable role the media is playing.
He said the objective of the training is to train CSOs and journalists on the relevance of carrying out monitoring of public procurement and to enhancing the capacity of both groups to undertake such monitoring.
The NPPA chief noted that another crucial objective of the training is to amplify people`s voices to ensuring the effective delivery of public services.
“With effective monitoring of public procurement, the work of the Audit Service Sierra Leone (ASSL) and Anti-Corruption Commission(ACC)will be minimized, which will in turn attract foreign direct investment and portray an excellent image of the country, because as he pointed out nobody would like to invest in a country that is riddled with corruption”, the NPPA boss explained.
He said when he assumed office as head of the NPPA he was challenged with staffing due to the availability of only 37 staff, but as of now, due to his leadership style the NPPA can now boast of 115 staff countrywide, with regional offices established under his reign in Bo, Kenema and Makeni respectively.
Mr Swarray stated that even though the Procurement Act was enacted in 2004, he has ensured the availability of regulations and procurement manual to popularize the Act and to simplify it for easy reading, because the 2004 procurement enactment is highly legalese.
He revealed that 14 staff from the NPPA including himself has been sent to the United States Of America for capacity building training and further revealed that in 2023 the Authority wants to migrate from manual to electronics procurement because the world has gone digital.
Mr Swarray said assessment reports and price norms, and getting the right specification are relevant when it comes to effective procurement monitoring and further pointed out that any falsification of documents will automatically lead to the termination of a contract.
During the training lawyer Francis Brima Schools journalists and CSO`s on the procurement legal system, whiles Mr Alfred Kandeh the Executive Board chairman dilated on his general procurement experience as the former head of the NPPA and Alieu Moigbeh explained about what is entailed in the procurement process and Alieu Badara gave a presentation on the steps involved in monitoring and evaluating procurement processes.