***Prescribe Punitive Measures Against Defaulters
By CLEMENT NWOJI, Abuja
The Federal Government has been urged to compel Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) to regularly publish their procurement data in accordance with the Open Contracting Data Standards (OCDS) and to make the data available on Nigeria Open Contracting Portal (NOCOPO).
Participants at a one-day workshop on Open Contracting Data Standards (OCDS) for Representatives of Civil Society Organizations and the Media, made the call Tuesday.
The workshop was organized as part of a series of activities being implemented separately by Media Rights Agenda (MRA) and Public and Private Development Centre (PPDC) under the Nigerian component of a project funded by the Hewlett Foundation and managed by the Africa Freedom of Information Centre (AFIC) in Uganda.
They contended that this will not only enhance citizens participation in contracts procurement and monitoring of execution but also facilitate eradication of corrupt practices.
Contained in a communique adopted by the participants and read by the Executive Director, Media Rights Agenda (MRA), Mr. Edetaen Ojo at the end of the workshop, the participants further recommended that punitive measures should be taken against MDAs which failed to comply.
Other recommendations by the participants include that: “The Federal Government, particularly the Attorney-General of the Federation, the Secretary to the Government of the Federation and the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation, should take measures to ensure the effective implementation of the Freedom of Information Act while also strictly enforcing compliance with the provisions of the Act by all Federal public institutions as part of the Government’s strategies for reducing the incidence of public sector corruption and boosting citizen engagement in governance.
“The media should strive to report corruption in the procurement process as well as in other areas in a manner that does not make the issue too abstract for citizens to grasp, but captures and conveys the consequences and impact of corruption on citizens, including often determining whether people live or die, or whether they have a good quality of life or a miserable existence.
“Civil society actors and media practitioners should familiarize themselves with the Freedom of Information Act as well as the Guidelines on the Implementation of the Act, issued by the Attorney-General of the Federation in order to enhance their ability to request and obtain information of interest to them from the government.
“Civil society organizations and the media should take advantage of the Freedom of Information Act to facilitate transparency in the public procurement process as the FOI Act is broader in its scope of application than the Public Procurement Act and has stronger enforcement mechanisms.
“In addition, civil society organizations and the media should undertake public enlightenment and sensitization activities to encourage and empower citizens to engage the public procurement process as well as open contracting data published by government institutions in order to make the open contracting initiative meaningful.
“Civil society and media organizations should vigorously engage the public procurement process to ensure that Nigeria realizes within the stipulated timeframe the commitment in its second OGP National Action Plan “To improve accountability and transparency of government procurement processes through the implementation of open contracting and public participation in the public contracting process”.
“Depending on their capacities and areas of interest or mandate, in engaging the procurement process, civil society and media organisations may choose to focus their efforts on observing procurement processes in public institutions within specific sectors that they deem relevant for them and at any tier of government that they determine that they are able to effectively engage, such as Federal, State or Local Governments.
“The Governments of the 36 States of the Federation should urgently take steps to apply open contracting and open contracting data standards in their procurement processes in order to better deliver the dividends of democracy to citizens residents in their respective states.”
The full text of the communique reads:
Communiqué
Workshop on Open Contracting Data Standards (OCDS) for Representatives of Civil Society Organizations and the Media
Introduction
A one-day workshop on Open Contracting Data Standards (OCDS) for Representatives of Civil Society Organizations and the Media was held at 3J’s Hotel in Abuja on Tuesday, March 16, 2021 under the auspices of Media Rights Agenda (MRA).
The goal of the workshop was to ensure that representatives of civil society and media stakeholders are familiar with the OCDS as an important tool for enhancing the transparency and accountability of public contracts throughout the entire cycle of contract awards and implementation, and thereby improve their capacity to engage public procurement processes. It was also aimed at contributing to the realization of Nigeria’s commitment on open contracting in its second Open Government Partnership (OGP) National Action Plan (NAP).
The workshop was organized as part of a series of activities being implemented separately by MRA and Public and Private Development Centre (PPDC) under the Nigerian component of a project funded by the Hewlett Foundation and managed by the Africa Freedom of Information Centre (AFIC) in Uganda.
It was attended by 21 participants, drawn from among civil society and media organisations in Abuja.
The workshop addressed the concepts of Open Contracting and the Open Contracting Data Standards (OCDS) as well as their application in Nigeria; the use of the Freedom of Information Act in ensuring transparency in public procurements while participants were sensitized to a variety of OCDS platforms in Nigeria at the Federal and State levels, including the Nigeria Open Contracting Portal (NOCOPO) and Budeshi, among others. At the end of the workshop, the participants adopted this Communique.
Observations
The participants made the following observations:
The media and civil society organisations have vital roles to play in holding governments and government institutions accountable, especially in relation to expenditures made through public contracting. They can play these roles effectively by engaging public procurement processes, making constant requests for procurement information to assess the fairness of procurement activities, and ensuring that citizens are getting value for money in such processes.
Although the Public Procurement Act, 2007 prescribes some broad measures and principles for ensuring transparency in public procurement processes, including by its requirement for a rigorous and systematic documentation of procurement proceedings, the maintenance of procurement records as well as the collation and maintenance of other records and information related to the procurement process; the requirement for the proactive publication or release of certain types of information; the requirement that bid opening sessions should be open to the public as well as to stakeholders and interested parties; and a limited regime of access to procurement records and information on request, the provisions of the Act alone are insufficient to guarantee and ensure transparency in public contracts.
The issue of the standards in which contract data is presented is important for many reasons, including the fact that the format in which data is presented can facilitate or hinder analysis of the contract information. Since the formats in which data are presented is an essential issue in open contracting, by providing data in a way that makes it open to anyone that wants to analyze the data, governments can make the procurement process more transparent.
Nigeria continues to face the critical challenge of how to get more citizens, including journalists and representatives of civil society organizations, interested and engaged in monitoring public procurement processes as a pre-condition for seeking the information and acquiring the skills to use data effectively in monitoring procurements.
Citizen engagement and participation are critical to the effectiveness of open contracting frameworks while open contracting in turn enables citizens to know what is being done with their money, especially in the area of public procurements.
Open Contracting is the best propeller of transparency, accountability and effective service delivery in the procurement sector and adopting the Open Contracting Data Standards is the means to achieving the objecting of open contracting in public procurements.
Everyone stands to benefit if probity, fairness, transparency and accountability are instilled into the procurement process and competitiveness, value-for-money, cost-effectiveness and professionalism are ensured in the procurement system, which are major objectives of the Public Procurement Act, 2007
Governments themselves also stand to benefit enormously by making contracting processes and data more open as they can then build trust between citizens and the governments, which will in turn make it easier for them to govern.
Recommendations
The participants therefore recommended as follows:
The Federal Government, particularly the Attorney-General of the Federation, the Secretary to the Government of the Federation and the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation, should take measures to ensure the effective implementation of the Freedom of Information Act while also strictly enforcing compliance with the provisions of the Act by all Federal public institutions as part of the Government’s strategies for reducing the incidence of public sector corruption and boosting citizen engagement in governance.
The media should strive to report corruption in the procurement process as well as in other areas in a manner that does not make the issue too abstract for citizens to grasp, but captures and conveys the consequences and impact of corruption on citizens, including often determining whether people live or die, or whether they have a good quality of life or a miserable existence.
Civil society actors and media practitioners should familiarize themselves with the Freedom of Information Act as well as the Guidelines on the Implementation of the Act, issued by the Attorney-General of the Federation in order to enhance their ability to request and obtain information of interest to them from the government.
Civil society organizations and the media should take advantage of the Freedom of Information Act to facilitate transparency in the public procurement process as the FOI Act is broader in its scope of application than the Public Procurement Act and has stronger enforcement mechanisms.
In addition, civil society organizations and the media should undertake public enlightenment and sensitization activities to encourage and empower citizens to engage the public procurement process as well as open contracting data published by government institutions in order to make the open contracting initiative meaningful.
Civil society and media organizations should vigorously engage the public procurement process to ensure that Nigeria realizes within the stipulated timeframe the commitment in its second OGP National Action Plan “To improve accountability and transparency of government procurement processes through the implementation of open contracting and public participation in the public contracting process”.
Depending on their capacities and areas of interest or mandate, in engaging the procurement process, civil society and media organisations may choose to focus their efforts on observing procurement processes in public institutions within specific sectors that they deem relevant for them and at any tier of government that they determine that they are able to effectively engage, such as Federal, State or Local Governments.
The Federal Government should ensure that all its ministries, departments and agencies are publishing their procurement data in accordance with the OCDS and that all procurement data are made available on NOCOPO. MDAs which fail to comply with these data standards should be appropriately sanctioned.
The Governments of the 36 States of the Federation should urgently take steps to apply open contracting and open contracting data standards in their procurement processes in order to better deliver the dividends of democracy to citizens residents in their respective states.
Adopted in Abuja this Tuesday, the 16th Day of March, 2021.
