The House of Representatives Committee on Public Procurement has decried the poor allocation to the Bureau of Public Procurement (BPE) for monitoring and surveillance of projects in the 2022 budget.
The committee members, during the budget defence session on Tuesday, expressed dissatisfaction with the allocation of N28.5 million to the Bureau to monitor all federal government projects, describing it as insufficient.
The Chairman of the Committee, Ali Nasiru (APC, Kano), while asking the Director General of BPP, Mamman Ahmadu, about the performance of the 2022 budget, flagged the allocation to surveillance and monitoring aspect of the bureau’s budget.
“The surveillance of all Federal Government’s projects has an allocation of N28.5 million. Is that the amount that you are supposed to use for surveillance of all government projects for the year 2022? Are you talking about the 36 states of Nigeria?
“I am sure all these projects run into thousands of projects. Are you saying N28.5 million is the only funding that you have for monitoring of all projects?” he said.
Responding to the questions, Mr Ahmadu said the allocation is not sufficient though the bureau is working within its enveloped budget.
He explained that the bureau cannot monitor all projects, but would rather do random monitoring based on established criteria.
“On the surveillance issue, the money is not sufficient. N28 million definitely is not sufficient, but we have an envelope, and in our choice of priority, that is the amount we can allow for surveillance. We do the best we can given the lean resources we have.
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“It is not all the projects that we carry our surveillance on. We do a random selection of projects, and to do the surveillance —surveillance is also done through outsourcing of the job, some are carried out by members of staff.
“In the monitoring of projects, we identify projects that are underperforming, and we look at payments made for those projects if there is a mismatch between performance and payment, ” the DG said.
A member of the committee, Ben Kalu (APC, Abia), in his contribution, said poor allocation will not ensure the efficiency of monitoring.
The committee, therefore, resolved that the DG should provide them with the breakdown of all expenses made so far in 2022.
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