BPP collaborating with World Bank to achieve public procurement standard — Ahmadu

The Bureau of Public Procurement (BPP), said it is working to achieve the World Bank funded Sustainable Procurement Environmental and Social Standards Enhancement Project (SPESSE).

This was disclosed by the Director-General of BPP, Mamman Ahmadu through a statement yesterday.

Recall that the SPESSE is funded through World Bank finance support.

Ahmadu expressed resolve to support the SPESSE team and promised to engage all stakeholders to key into the process of developing a professional procurement system that will meet global standards.

He said that the SPESSE project was designed to start from 2020–2024 with 23 ministries as pilot organisations.

The statement also quoted Prof Bola Afolabi, a SPESSE Senior Procurement Specialist as saying, “The project is aimed at professionalising procurement in Nigeria.”

The set benchmark was to establish a professional procurement practice of world-class standard, according to Afolabi

He proposed that the programme would require about 80 million dollars  to become fully operational.

He further explained that 80 per cent of the budget was meant to establish centres of excellence where stakeholders would be trained and retrained to align with government policies.

The statement also quoted Bayo Awosemusi, a procurement specialist with the World Bank as saying, “All stakeholders, including private practitioners should be involved to enable the project to succeed.”