Group Threatens Court Action Over Budget Padding, Calls It A Serious Procurement Infraction.

The Network for the Actualisation of Social Growth and Viable Development (NEFGAD), a public procurement advocacy group, has issued a pre-action notice to the Federal Government and the National Assembly regarding Budget interference by the National Assembly.

The group made this known in a letter signed by its head of office, Mr Akingunola Omoniyi, and addressed to President Bola Tinubu, Senate President Godswill Akpabio, and House of Representatives Speaker Rt Hon Tajudeen Abbas.

Omoniyi argued that projects initiated by lawmakers are beyond the National Assembly’s legislative powers, as outlined in the Nigerian constitution and the Public Procurement Act of 2007.

He stated that: “The power to initiate any procurement proceeding is purely an executive function and lies with procuring entities/ministerial and extra-ministerial procurement committees and such must be conducted strictly in line with section 18 (a, b, c, d, e, f and g) of the Public Procurement Act 2007, which mandates procuring entities to engage in procurement planning to prepare the needs assessment and evaluation; identifying the goods/works or services.”

Mr Omoniyi stated that “the spirit and letter of the Public Procurement Act emphasises the need to organise public procurement in a manner that ensures economy of scale, guides against undue interference, and ensures that the process maintains a high level of proven system scrutiny and integrity.”

As a result, any project/procurement item that does not satisfy legally outlined planning and organisational criteria (as in the case of constituency projects inserted midway into public procurement proceedings by the National Assembly) is completely defective.

He objected to the National Assembly’s usual practice of upwardly/downwardly reviewing budget estimates during budget presentations/defence, claiming that it is improper and illegal, given that the appropriation bill is an executive bill and all procurement items are assumed to have passed through due and highly technical processes of procurement assessment, evaluation, market and survey/price intelligence, among others, as enshrined in the PPA.

“As a result, any cost/project anomalies discovered are an indictment on the procurement planning committees tasked with project costing; he stated that such anomalies cannot be corrected overnight by the National Assembly in the Hallow chamber.

He did, however, state that if there are any errors or deficiencies in the budgetary allocations, the National Assembly can return the entire appropriation bill to the president, who will make the necessary corrections/amendments through the procuring entities/procurement planning committees and present them to the National Assembly for reconsideration.

Omoniyi stated that the National Assembly’s legislative power is to make laws, and this power has limitations, particularly in terms of public procurement.

“The power had been sufficiently exercised by the enactment of the existing Public Procurement Act 2007; therefore, any conduct by the National Assembly on public contracts outside of the existing Public Procurement Act/regulations constitutes abuse of power/over-legislation.