Fighting corruption in infrastructure delivery in Nigeri

M. Sohail (Khan) (7175486)

English

Loughborough University Institutional Repository

   This item was submitted to Loughborough’s Institutional Repository (https://dspace.lboro.ac.uk/) by the author and is made available under the following Creative Commons Licence conditions.      For the full text of this licence, please go to: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.5/  Eldis - id21 Archivehttp://www.eldis.org/id21ext/u1ga1g1.html[21/03/2012 13:39:59]Please note - this  article  was originally published on the id21 website which has now closed. This  and other articles produced by id21 were archivedby Eldis in  2009 and are not actively  maintained. If  you find links and references which are no longer  valid please email eldis@ids.ac.uk.Fighting corruption in infrastructure delivery in NigeriaIn 2003, the Nigerian government set up the Budget Monitoring and Price Intelligence Unit (BMPIU) to haltcorruption and incompetence in public procurement and service delivery. Stakeholders, including contractors,suppliers and end-users, have had diverse reactions to the initiative. How has it performed and what are itsstrengths and weaknesses?A study for the ‘Partnering to Combat Corruption Series’, run by the Water, Engineering and Development Centre,at Loughborough University, in the UK, seeks to gain insight into the BMPIU's operations and to highlight itsstrengths and weaknesses. It offers recommendations on how to ensure more effective, impact-orientated servicedelivery, especially for poor people. The research focuses on the BMPIU's impact on 'hard-naira savings' (the nairais Nigeria's domestic currency) in public procurement, as an easily identifiable and measurable cost reduction inservice delivery.The BMPIU aims to make contract awarding processes more transparent and to ensure compliance with theprescribed guidelines and procedures for capital project procurement and related goods and services. It seeks tosystematically unify recurrent and capital budget expenditures and build a framework that will bring about bestpractice methods. This should, in turn, lead to well-defined sector objectives and strategies. Capital spending ismonitored through audits, controls and computerisation. Techniques have been put in place to improve the costingof capital projects, while the Medium Term Expenditure Framework tries to ensure that items in ministry budgets arein line with priority targets.The BMPIU is crucial in the Nigerian government's reform efforts to promote good governance through bettermanagement of public finances.  The reform of both public procurement and the Medium Term ExpenditureFramework has helped improve public spending. However, the BMPIU has yet to assess the whole-life costing ofprocurement contracts to ensure current and future savings. Public perception is that the BMPIU is performingbelow average.The following have been identified as obstacles to the effective performance of the BMPIU:obstructive bureaucracyunduly long and unpredictable procedural processeslack of adequate information or disclosureineffective data archiving and record-keeping practicesinsufficient human resources. The procurement process is crucial to how potential investors and civil society view a country. A transparentprocurement process is important for efficiency, in that it improves the contestability of public procurement marketsby providing all qualified potential suppliers the opportunity to bid. If procurement procedures are unclear, incentivesfor farms to enter the market are reduced. The study made a number of recommendations to improve the BMPIU's operation, including:The bureaucracy of the process needs to be reduced and the stages of the approval process shortened toreduce the length of time involved.A fixed timeframe needs to be introduced for the start-to-completion process of certification to improvepredictability. This may differ depending on the project type.Procedures must be put in place to ensure that procurement processes are followed correctly and that anyaction taken on procurement is documented and can be substantiated.Eldis - id21 Archivehttp://www.eldis.org/id21ext/u1ga1g1.html[21/03/2012 13:39:59]Views expressed on these pages are not necessarily  those of DfID, IDS, id21 or  other contributinginstitutions.  Articles featured on the id21 site  may be copied or  quoted without restriction provided id21 andoriginating author(s)  and institution(s) are acknowledged.  Copyright © 2009 IDS. All  rights  reserved.id21 is funded by the UK Department  for International Development . id21 is one of a  family of knowledgeservices at the Institute of Development  Studies at the University of Sussex. id21 is a  www.oneworld.netpartner and an affiliate of www.mediachannel.org. IDS is a  charitable company,  No.  877338.The BMPIU must conduct a far-reaching public awareness campaign to inform the public of its aims andactivities in the effort to clean up public procurement.The public should be notified of bid outcomes promptly, as delays allow manipulation to occur and causethe public to doubt the transparency of decision-making.Measures need to be adopted to improve record-keeping to ensure transparency.Source(s):'Budget Monitoring and Price Intelligence Unit (Due Process): a Mechanism for Combatting Corruption inInfrastructure Delivery in Nigeria', WEDC, Loughborough University, by Gabriel T Aduda, 2007 (PDF)Funded by: UK Department for International Developmentid21 Research Highlight: 14 September 2008Further Information:M SohailWater, Engineering and Development CentreLoughborough UniversityLeicestershireLE11 3TUUKTel: +44 1509 222890Fax: +44 1509 211079Contact the contributor: m.sohail@lboro.ac.ukWater, Engineering and Development Centre, Loughborough University, Leicestershire, UKGabriel T AdudaFederal Capital Territory AdministrationFCT Conditional Grant Scheme Task TeamProject OfficeApo Legislative Quarters, Zone AAbujaNigeriaTel: +234 8053719220Contact the contributor: infor@mdgfctabuja.orgFederal Capital Territory Administration, Abuja, NigeriaOther related links: 'Tackling corruption to improve housing services in Indonesia''Fighting corruption in infrastructure delivery in South Africa''Combating corruption in service provision in Nepal'

Fighting corruption in infrastructure delivery in Nigeria

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Fighting corruption in infrastructure delivery in Nigeria

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