The Director-General (DG), Bureau of Public Procurement (BPP), Dr Adebowale Adedokun, has identified weak sanctions against misconduct and inadequate capacity among procurement officers as major factors undermining Nigeria’s procurement system.

Mr Adedokun stated this in Abuja on Sunday while speaking on challenges confronting the bureau and ongoing efforts to strengthen accountability in public procurement.

According to him, the bureau has over the years failed to punish bad behaviour in the procurement process, thereby creating an environment where erring contractors and officials operated without fear of consequences.

He said, “We have not been sanctioning bad behaviour. Now that I’m trying to sanction people, everybody is crying.”

Drawing comparisons with stricter enforcement systems abroad, the DG stressed that accountability was necessary to prevent waste of public funds.

“Why is it that in my own country you cause Nigeria to lose money and people say ‘I beg’? When you do ‘I beg’ tomorrow, there is no incentive for those who are doing well. How do I encourage those who are doing well when they see their colleagues doing the wrong thing?”

He noted that the bureau was now taking steps to enforce compliance, sanction erring contractors and reward integrity within the procurement sector.

Mr Adedokun also blamed poor human capacity development for inefficiencies in the system, both on the part of the procurement staff and end users.

“The major challenge today has to do with capacity building. People were used to a particular way of doing procurement where anything goes. Now procurement is a process, and for them to sit down and be studious is difficult,” he said.

The BPP boss said the Federal Government had approved and gazetted a debarment policy aimed at sanctioning contractors involved in project abandonment and fraudulent practices.

The Debarment Policy, approved by President Bola Tinubu in 2025, specifically targets contractors who perform substandard work or abandon projects, with the possibility of international blacklisting.

According to him, though no company has yet been formally debarred under the new framework, the process for implementation has commenced.

He said, “We already have some companies that the World Bank and development partners have debarred. With this debarment policy, we will now correspondingly debar them from doing business.”

The DG stated that ministries, departments agencies (MDAs) were expected to report defaulting contractors to the bureau for necessary action.

He added, “BPP cannot do that alone. It is the responsibility of the procuring entities to file reports to BPP for us to be able to debar.”

He added that the policy would serve as a deterrent to contractors who abandon projects or engage in fraudulent conduct.

“The important thing is that contractors now know that if you abandon projects or you are criminal in nature, we can take it up and debar you,” he stated.

Mr Adedokun further said that some contractors had already refunded government funds following audit queries raised by the bureau.

He noted, “I have contractors who have refunded government after our reports showed they collected more money than they should have. If you don’t refund, you will face prosecution.”

(NAN)