By Ralph Sesay
Sections 18 (1) of the National Public Procurement Act of 2016 as amended provides for the setting up of Procurement Committees at respective Ministries, Departments and Agencies .Their principal role according to this section is to serve as the highest decision making body in the MDA’s and to oversee the procurement of goods and services so that the country achieves value for money.
It is no secret that, government has over the years been losing huge sums of money in the sector largely because of misappropriation and leakages .As a country we have not been able to achieve value for money in the procurement of goods and services. MDA’s and other government entities had a field day with regards the procurement of goods and services. Suppliers and contractors had profited hugely at the expense of building more schools, hospitals and the provision of other basic social services for which ordinary Sierra Leoneans have voted their government .The NPPA Act of 2016 has been violated with impunity over the years. Waivers and tax holidays have taken precedence over competition which will create value for money. Many contracts which are meant to provide goods and services for the people of Sierra Leone have either been abandoned or do not match up to the terms of proving efficient goods or services as indicated in those contracts.
Corruption has overtaken the sector to the point that the name Procurement is almost associated with corruption. The contents of various Auditor Generals reports in the last decade have been overwhelmed with a number of procurement breaches in various MDA’S both nationally and internationally amounting to wastage of millions of dollars. This state of affairs has even created a bad image for our government abroad and even in international circles as huge procurement leakages have been detected in donor funded projects. It is no secret that our international partners have over the years made nonsense of our procurement processes which they believe is surrounded with corruption. The recommendations in almost all of these Auditor Generals reports have not been followed-up by successive governments.The Public Accounts Committees of our law making body and the corruption watchdog the ACC have failed over the years to ensure that MDA’s follow up on these recommendations or retrieve stolen monies as a result of bad procurement processes.Many have attributed the underperformance of these bodies to the fact that these bad contracts to procure goods and services have been awarded to party cronies or family relatives of politicians or heavily influenced by kick backs to politicians. The intention of the Audit Service Sierra Leone was to be able to correct these anomalies as they relate to the procurement of goods and services and achieve value for money since the sector accounts for over 70% of government budgetary allocations.
It is the opinion of many Sierra Leoneans that curbing corruption in the sector will help government to redirect monies accrued from such leakages in the sector to other government development programs.
The NPPA under the New Direction is poised to ensure that it is not business as usual .It is determined to ensure that Sierra Leone and Sierra Leoneans achieve value for money. The Authority wants to ensure that the sector which accounts for over 70% of budgetary support is properly supervised to execute it functions of supervising and regulating the sector.
Towards this end the new Chief Executive has taken a number of steps which include but are not limited to developing price norms for use by the respective MDA’s, emphasizing on the use of the SPF 6 forms for all procurement transactions and reviews of all bidding forms initiated by MDA’s . The New NPPA Chief is very much concerned that government should start achieving value for money, he is determined that the credibility of his colleagues and the profession is restored. At the same time he is not oblivious of the fact the government should move a step further in improving the conditions of service of practicing procurement professionals against the backdrop that they are key towards meeting the President dream of stopping the huge leakages inherent in the system.
The Procurement Committees to a large extent were responsible and in charge of regulating procurement processes in the respective MDA’s and other government institutions
It is against this backdrop that we support the current move by the new NPPA team of restoring sanity in the sector. The success of this campaign embodies a very large portion of the President’s Campaign promise to stop the leakages inherent in the system. The country is in dire need of funds to meet the demands of the social services sector.