Violate Public Procurement Act, Go to Jail – Reps warn Public Servants
Public Servants saddled with procurement for agencies and institutions have been warned to comply strictly with the public procurement act or be ready to go to jail.
The Chairman House Committee on Public Procurement, Hon.Oluwole Oke who gave the warning shortly after his team”s on the spot assessment of level of compliance of authorities of Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife on public procurement act as related to the execution of capital projects capture in the budget from 2011 till
Lamenting the level of compliance by government establishments across the country, noted that his committee will further intensify efforts to ensure that violation of the act attracts prosecution by anti graft agencies.
Oke who spoke with newsmen, at OAU Thursday though gave the institution a clean bill of health but noted that some institutions earlier visited failed to comply with the act adding that they would face the full wrath of the law.
The representative of Oriade/Obokun in the green chamber insisted that the prosecution of defaulters is in accordance with the determination of the present government to wage war against corruption
He regretted that the level of compliance with the public procurement act across the country is low adding that his committee will ensure that whosoever fails to comply with the act is prosecuted accordingly.
His words: “sincerely speaking the level of compliance is very low in some agencies and if we would be recalled that one of our colleagues that we wrote this law together Bala Ngilari even became the victim of this act and he is being prosecuted accordingly”.
On moves to created awareness, Oke said: “currently we are educating our citizens on the provision of the act, Section 20 Sub section 1 place the implementation at the door steps of Chief Executive Officer to manage and supervise the procurement activities, also Section 58 Sub section 5 clearly state the sanctions for the violators of the provision of this act, Section 5 Sub section B clearly mandate the Department of Public Procurement, DPP to carry out post procurement audit at the end of each financial year”.
He noted that the act also mandate the procurement department to submit their procurement detail plans ahead of time because the procurement plan need to be detailed into the budget.
“Days of fire brigade approach is gone in this government, this is a government that has change as its appellation and so the citizens must also be guided to work in tandem with the vision of the government of the day”.
He urged all ministries and MDAs to familiarize with the contents and provision of this act and abide by it.
According to him,”we spent the last two years in sensitizing and educating the agencies about the provision of this act and in the next two years we intend to really pursue adherent to the provision of this act and any agencies or ministries that violated the provision of this act shall in compliance with the section 53 be referred to EFCC and ICPC .