A review of public procurement act and its implementation in ondo state, Nigeria

Abstract

In most developing countries across Africa, the adoption of good governance practices has taken considerable long time to take root, even though good governance mechanism promises enhanced rapidity of economic growth and sustainable development. This seems to be the experience of Nigeria and her federating states in the case of the public procurement reform agenda. While the Federal government of Nigeria has tried to adopt a public procurement regime to achieve the goal of good governance, most of the 36 federating states seem uninterested. The study is an expository analysis on the problems of adopting public procurement processes by federating states in Nigeria using Ondo State as case study. This study also traces the evolution of Nigeria’s public procurement systems from the pre-existent traditional till the Public Procurement act 2007 and charting the way forward for domestication by the federating units (States). The study used a methodology based on cáse study analysis, it focuses on the problems of adopting public procurement processes by federating states in Nigeria. It employed both primary and secondary sources of data. The primary data were sourced through informal random opinión survey targeted mostly at the stakeholders, using the opportunity of the Tenders Days in selected Government MDAs. The secondary data were primarily government publications, Treasury Circulars, Daily Newspapers, Public Procurement Act and Manual. Finding from the study revealed that so'me federating states have out-rightly refused to adopt public procurement regime as a good governance mechanism due to lack of political will, negligence and corruption which are bañe towards the full adoption of best practice and sustainable development. It concludes by encouraging a competitive environment for public procurement and ensuring maximal autonomy of the procurement process regulators.