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ICPC, PPDC train corp members on procurement monitoring

By Oludare Richards, Abuja
04 July 2015   |   2:12 am
IN an effort to increase public finance literacy and procurement monitoring activities in the key Human development sectors of Health and Education among young people, the Public and Private Development Centre (PPDC) in collaboration with the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) organised a Public Procurement Monitoring Workshop to train 150 youth corp members to monitor Public Procurement processes in the Health and Education sector.

nysc-corpers-attacked-CopyIN an effort to increase public finance literacy and procurement monitoring activities in the key Human development sectors of Health and Education among young people, the Public and Private Development Centre (PPDC) in collaboration with the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) organised a Public Procurement Monitoring Workshop to train 150 youth corp members to monitor Public Procurement processes in the Health and Education sector.

The training which took place with support from the Open Society Initiative for West Africa (OSIWA) at the ICPC headquarters in Abuja, had in attendance staff of the ICPC, PPDC and Youth Corp Members.

This training event is a first of several steps towards increasing citizen’s participation in the actualization of improved national infrastructure and public services. The purpose is to highlight the positive correlation between procurement monitoring and anti-corruption, the Head, Youth Education and Mobilization Unit of the Education Department, ICPC, Mr Kingsley Obi said.

The Procurement Monitoring Programme Coordinator for PPDC, Mrs. Nkemdilim Ilo emphasized the importance of the public procurement process to eventual public service delivery and walked participants through the various stages in the Public Procurement Monitoring Process.

She further explained the role and importance of an observer to the procurement monitoring process and how the Freedom of Information Act, 2011 is a veritable tool for accessing procurement related information. Real life simulations were used to exemplify the Public Procurement process with corps members participating in the discourse.

The programme titled “Increasing Citizen’s Participation in Governance through Procurement Monitoring” was implemented with support from the Open Society Initiatives for West Africa (OSIWA). The programme marks the first time PPDC worked formally working with the ICPC on the sensitization of youth corp members.

According to Ugochi Ekwueme, Communications Officer with the PPDC, “The participants of this training are members of the Anti-Corruption Community Development Group of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) which is presently being sponsored by ICPC.”

“Part of the roles of PPDC in the partnerships will be enlightening the youths on the value of the public procurement processes to the effectiveness of the resulting public services. Specifically, the training would provide information on the public procurement process, the meaning, relevance and legal basis for observing public procurement processes.

The Youth corp members would also be informed of the provisions on the Public Procurement Act 2007 as well as the benchmarks to watch out for when observing public procurement processes,” she added.

PPDC hopes to engage some of these corp members as monitors and as advocates for ensuring open and accountable contracting processes. 45 corps members indicated interest in monitoring public procurement in the Health and Education Sectors.

The representative of FCT UBEB, Engr Sidi Aliyu, gave a brief history on how UBEB became involved in the project. He said he was in-charge of the Almajiri project and the project was given to them by the Federal Government to monitor and execute till the end.

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