By; JACOB ONJEWU DICKSON
Partnership to Engage, Reform and Learn (PERL), a governance programme, on Friday, said that its engagement with stakeholders in local government areas (LGAs) is to strengthen inclusive participation in procurement processes
The State Lead Facilitator (SLF) 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.
Abel said that the objective of the meeting was to brainstorm on strategies for effective deployment of tools for tracking compliance in procurement processes.
Speaking further, 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 government areas have submitted their contracts to be uploaded on the portal,” he said.
Mr Yusuf Goje of Coalition of Associations for Leadership, Peace, Empowerment and Development (CALPED), said that LGAM is aimed at strengthening the institutionalisation of local government reforms and fiscal discipline.
Goje, a member of the LGAM Secretariat, said that the mechanism also seeks 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.
At the end of the engagement, 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 urged Kaduna State Public Procurement Authority to strengthen engagement with citizens, in collaboration with Open Government Partnership (OGP) Technical Working Group on Open Contracting.
The participants also agreed to partner with relevant professional bodies to help interpret Bill of Quantity to ensure delivery of projects according to specifications
The meeting was organised in collaboration with Local Government Accountability Mechanism (LGAM), a citizens and government dialogue platform on governance at local government level.
