Partnership to Engage, Reform and Learn (PERL), a governance programme, on Friday, said that its engagement with stakeholders in local government areas (LGAs) was to strengthen inclusive participation in procurement processes.
The State Lead Facilitator of PERL, Mr Adejor Abel, said at a meeting in Kaduna that the engagement was meant to deepen transparency and accountability in local government procurement processes.
The News Agency of Nigeria reports that the meeting was organised in collaboration with Local Government Accountability Mechanism (LGAM), a citizens and government dialogue platform on governance at local government level.
Abel said that the objective of the meeting was to brainstorm on strategies for effective deployment of tools for tracking compliance in procurement processes.
He said that the meeting was also to develop and adapt procurement and project tracking tools to the work-plan for tracking procurement and share findings with stakeholders.
Abel said that procurements were being facilitated electronically, adding that the measure should be extended to local government councils for transparency.
“So far, there are about 959 awarded contracts uploaded on the Open Contracting Data Standard (OCDS) portal.
“But, only five local governments have submitted their contracts to be uploaded in the portal,” he said.
Mr Yusuf Goje of Coalition of Associations for Leadership, Peace, Empowerment and Development, said that LGAM was aimed at strengthening the institutionalisation of local government reforms and fiscal discipline.
Goje, a member of the LGAM Secretariat, said that the mechanism also sought to improve quality service delivery, increase community engagement and ownership as well as build citizens’ confidence in governance.
He identified Community Development Chatter (CDC) as one of the platforms for citizens’ engagement in the procurement processes.
Goje said that CDC was a tool that citizens could use to identify their community needs and prioritise them, thereby influencing local government budgets.
According to him, this is a bottom-up approach to budgeting processes.
NAN reports that participants at the meeting resolved to pay a courtesy visit to the Ministry of Local Government to create better understanding and usage of OCDS.
They also called on local government councils to continue to engage relevant stakeholders and share information on procurement processes.
The participants also agreed to partner with relevant professional bodies to help interpret Bill of Quantity to ensure delivery of projects according to specifications.
They also urged Kaduna State Public Procurement Authority to strengthen engagement with citizens, in collaboration with Open Government Partnership Technical Working Group on Open Contracting. (
(NAN)
