AN insight into the emerging President Goodluck Jonathan governance style has shown that the National Economic Management Team (NEMT) will play more role in the Goodluck Jonathan administration in the next four years.
The President had last month announced that he would henceforth chair the NEMT, which has since its constitution in 1999 been headed by the Minister of Finance.
The new approach, a source said, is to enable the President “personally drive the economy in the direction of growth and development in the first 24 months of his administration and is therefore strongly in favour of charging the economic team with the supervision of major economic policies and projects of government with a view to achieving maximum results. The President is concerned about the large level of the recurrent expenditure of the country and how this has crowded out investment in infrastructure and capital projects development in the last two decades.”
The new NEMT will focus on power, reduce the infrastructure deficit and ensure that the refocused Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) drive the economic growth through enhancing the productivity of industries by aggressively promoting investment and trade.
He added that “there is no one single ministry or individual that can effectively implement these laudable programmes of the President within four years. So, the NEMT, with the President presiding and the Ministers of Finance and the refocused Ministry for Investment and Economic Development co-directing, the government will make great progress. This is the time for delivering the dividends of democracy to Nigerians and we know that President Jonathan is prepared to do just that. He has also started by chairing the Power Sector Reform Committee in 2010. What is needed now is action and something that will really bring transformation to the country.”
Meanwhile, the Director-General of the Bureau for Public Procurement (BPP), Emeka Ezeh, has said yesterday the contract verification agency received request for over 952 contracts in the last appropriation year, which ran from January 2010 to March this year. Of this, he said nine requests for contract verification were denied as the bureau awaits information from the supervisory ministry for over a hundred contracts. Ezeh stated this yesterday at the European Union (EU) third business in Lagos.
The BPP boss explained that there are strict sanctions in place for erring personnel of government ministries agencies and departments, who breach regulations to short change the government.
He listed the challenges of budget implementation to include poor procurement planning by the respective governmental agencies, delay in budget submission by the National Assembly, delay in appropriation by National Assembly as well as admitting into budget projects not ready with detailed design and scope, making contractors unable to execute in one year.
Other challenges listed by the technocrats are budget release versus funds availability, delay in award of contracts long after the “BPP No Objection Certificate (NOC),” has been issued.
The rest are major changes of scope after award of contract, abandonment of procurement processes if the preferred contractor is unsuccessful.
He therefore called for strong political support, affirming that no reform will work without the needed assistance.
“We are calling for strong international support needed for the Bureau for Public Procurement to survive. We are also calling for depoliticization of the procurement process, as we look forward to gain stakeholders buy in as well as urging all state and local governments to adopt the law.”
The President had last month announced that he would henceforth chair the NEMT, which has since its constitution in 1999 been headed by the Minister of Finance.
The new approach, a source said, is to enable the President “personally drive the economy in the direction of growth and development in the first 24 months of his administration and is therefore strongly in favour of charging the economic team with the supervision of major economic policies and projects of government with a view to achieving maximum results. The President is concerned about the large level of the recurrent expenditure of the country and how this has crowded out investment in infrastructure and capital projects development in the last two decades.”
The new NEMT will focus on power, reduce the infrastructure deficit and ensure that the refocused Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) drive the economic growth through enhancing the productivity of industries by aggressively promoting investment and trade.
He added that “there is no one single ministry or individual that can effectively implement these laudable programmes of the President within four years. So, the NEMT, with the President presiding and the Ministers of Finance and the refocused Ministry for Investment and Economic Development co-directing, the government will make great progress. This is the time for delivering the dividends of democracy to Nigerians and we know that President Jonathan is prepared to do just that. He has also started by chairing the Power Sector Reform Committee in 2010. What is needed now is action and something that will really bring transformation to the country.”
Meanwhile, the Director-General of the Bureau for Public Procurement (BPP), Emeka Ezeh, has said yesterday the contract verification agency received request for over 952 contracts in the last appropriation year, which ran from January 2010 to March this year. Of this, he said nine requests for contract verification were denied as the bureau awaits information from the supervisory ministry for over a hundred contracts. Ezeh stated this yesterday at the European Union (EU) third business in Lagos.
The BPP boss explained that there are strict sanctions in place for erring personnel of government ministries agencies and departments, who breach regulations to short change the government.
He listed the challenges of budget implementation to include poor procurement planning by the respective governmental agencies, delay in budget submission by the National Assembly, delay in appropriation by National Assembly as well as admitting into budget projects not ready with detailed design and scope, making contractors unable to execute in one year.
Other challenges listed by the technocrats are budget release versus funds availability, delay in award of contracts long after the “BPP No Objection Certificate (NOC),” has been issued.
The rest are major changes of scope after award of contract, abandonment of procurement processes if the preferred contractor is unsuccessful.
He therefore called for strong political support, affirming that no reform will work without the needed assistance.
“We are calling for strong international support needed for the Bureau for Public Procurement to survive. We are also calling for depoliticization of the procurement process, as we look forward to gain stakeholders buy in as well as urging all state and local governments to adopt the law.”
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