Adebowale Adedokun, director-general (DG) of the Bureau of Public Procurement (BPP), says anti-corruption agencies should start monitoring budgets from inception instead of acting only after funds have been misused.
Adedokun spoke in Abuja on Wednesday during the national conference on public accounts and fiscal governance, themed ‘Fiscal Governance in Nigeria: Charting a New Course for Transparency and Sustainable Development.’
Adedokun called for a complete reform of Nigeria’s project financing system, noting that starting any project without securing full funding is against international best practice.
“There are projects worth N10 billion or N5 billion, but what I see is that only N300 million is allocated. It tells me that I’ll be asked for appropriation again or to incur a variation. That is wasteful and unacceptable,” he said.
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The BPP boss pointed out that several federal projects have been ongoing for years without proof of progress and are still attracting yearly budget allocations.
“In global standards, a project must already have funding from start to finish before execution. But here, people just award contracts without funds, and that’s a clear violation of the Procurement Act,” he said.
Adedokun said the BPP uncovered cases where contracts were awarded and executed without any funding, describing the practice as illegal.
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He reiterated that anti-graft agencies, including the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Fiscal Responsibility Commission, and Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC), should begin tracking funds from the outset of the budget cycle, rather than waiting until projects have stalled or failed.
“If we are serious about stopping waste and corruption, we must start monitoring at the beginning of the budget cycle. Not after projects have failed or funds have been misused,” he said.
He condemned the failure to convict public officials for procurement violations, despite substantial evidence provided by oversight agencies.
“In the last seven months, the bureau has recorded close to 500 infractions. Many of these require prosecution and judicial pronouncements, but when does the judiciary give any conviction? People continue to do the wrong things because they know they won’t be punished,” he said.
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“We have never sanctioned people for bad behaviour. That has to change.”
He urged lawmakers and government institutions to integrate prudence and discipline into all budget and procurement processes.
Adedokun said ministries, departments, and agencies (MDAs) should be required to provide verifiable proof of the previous budget before approval is granted to the new one.
“Let them show us, empirically, what they did with the last project before we approve another,” he said.
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