By Our Correspondent
The House of Representatives Committee on Public Procurement has rejected the N58 million capital allocation in the 2023 budget proposal for the Bureau of Public Procurement (BPP).
Rep. Nassir Ahmed, Chairman of the Committee rejected the budget proposal when Mr Mamman Ahmadu, Director General of BPP appeared before the committee to defend the 2023 budget in Abuja on Tuesday.
Ahmed said such an amount was ridiculous and unacceptable, adding that the D-G must make a case for BPP in order to correct such an anomaly.
According to him, BPP needs to make a case for this more budget proposal as this amount is too small to run an agency, “even if you are working with the envelope system, the onus is on you to make a case.
“Your agency is very relevant to the growth of this country. If you get your procurement right, there will be less costly and you will get the best to do the job.
“So, if you do not make that case and bring it before the committee, no one is going to do that for you.
“You cannot run an agency with N58 million, it’s too small; you must make a strong case,” the Committee chairman said.
The chairman decried the reduction of the capital expenditure from N94 million to N58 million, saying, “I don’t understand why an important agency like BPP will be allocated N58 million for the capital budget in 2023.
“This is inadequate, even a local government chairman has more than N58 million; we have a local government that collects N500 million as allocation.
“We must sit with the Senate committee and see how the budget can be increased; we should look at this as a committee.
“The BPP is an agency that is very strategic and important, and the N58 million allocated is very ridiculous.”
The committee, however, raised issues with the N67 million spent on local training and N129 million spent on international training by the bureau.
The committee said Nigeria remained the loser with the poor budgeting for the bureau.
The DG had claimed in his 2022 budget performance that the bureau spent N67 million on local training while N129 million was expended on international training.
Ahmadu explained that the local training is N67 million in addition to the DTA while N129 million is for international training, which includes workshops and other training expenses.
He commended the committee for the level of support received over the year, adding that the support had been impactful and overwhelming.
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