Former President Olusegun Obasanjo called for a review of the public procurement policies in Nigeria to promote business integrity, eliminate corrupt practices and drive national transformation.
Speaking at the 6th Annual Christopher Kolade Lecture on Business Integrity, entitled: “The Role of Business Integrity in National Transformation”, Obasanjo identified poor investment, poverty, infrastructure decay, institutional inefficiency and wide range of socio-economic crisis as some of the negative consequences of corrupt practices and lack of integrity in public and private businesses.
He said the country’s procurement process probably construed the largest source of leakage.
According to him, awards of contracts, supply, service contracts and others are usually loaded with provisions for bribes and kickbacks.
He said: “As Africans, we need to look inward, we need value and reorientation that is anchored on our virtues of truthfulness, hospitality, respect, honesty, obedience and patriotism. And as a matter of urgent national emergency, Nigeria must re-invigorate efforts to reform public procurement policies, especially the Public Procurement Act which regulates public procurement and aim to minimise the abuse of processes, rules and standards in the awards and execution of public sector contracts.”
Photo Credit: Getty
