By Politico Staff Writer
The Independent Procurement Review Panel (IPRP) has requested for over 1 billion Leones at the ongoing Budget Hearing for the 2022 Financial Year at the Ministry of Finance on the 28th September, 2021 for effective implementation of their activities.
Chairman of IPRP, Emmanuel Saffa Abdulai said that the institution is underfunded as only 500 million Leones was allocated to them for this year. Abdulai added that the quota allocated to them in the previous year was ‘paltry’ and ‘ridiculous’ to run the operations of the institution, considering the workload.
The Chairman added that the requested fund if granted will assist them to carry out public education and community sensitization campaigns with stakeholders like Local Councils among others. He noted that the fund will assist the institution to broaden their outreach to the Provinces. He said that the IPRP is looking forward to having a website to broaden their public education and outreach. These, he said, are core mandates of the IPRP.
He added that Government spends 70 percent in procuring goods, works and services and that this makes the field very vital for the government.
Abdulai stressed on the importance of procurement sanitisation in the fight against corruption and cited the Audit Service Report 2020 which stated that some government institutions flouted the Procurement Act of 2016.
He said that the Secretariat used to be located at the National Procurement Authority Office at Tower Hill, Freetown which he said to some extent undermined their work.
Abdulai noted that before he took over, the institution had only one staff which affected the output of the IPRP. He stated an office has been set up and running at 3A Wellington Street in Freetown, with the institution currently recruiting staff to beef up its manpower.
The Chairman, however, stated that the office is without a generator to serve as backup in case of power outage. He added that the institution needs a vehicle to carry out some of their operations and activities.
Regional Coordinator for Non State Actors in Kambia District, Foday Dada supported the request made by IPRP and appealed to Ministry of Finance (MOF) to allocate the said quota to the office. He noted this will enable them to roll out their activities to the next Fiscal Year.
Senior Financial Secretary MOF, Samuel Momoh asked the IPRP to indicate their activities that were not executed. He said that the challenges for the failure of the said activities will be considered during the presentation.
Other stakeholders present also supported that the requested budget by IPRP be accepted for the 2022 Fiscal Year.
Copyright © Politico Online (01/10/21)
