TVC E. On Thursday, June 16, the Senate passed a law to make buying Nigerian made goods compulsory. This decision was taken after consideration of the report of the committee on public procurement sponsored by Joshua Dariye representing Plateau West senatorial district.
The bill is titled procurement act 2007 (amendment) bill 2007 (SB. 232). The Senate president, Bukola Saraki said while making his contributions that the lawmakers have to play a role to ensure that the executive complies with this decision.
He added that many countries have used this means to improve their economy positively as the lawmakers should inject their full effort and support to make sure it works.
“In stimulating our economy, but again we all have a role to play to ensure that the Executive comply especially in the area of giving first priority to locally produced goods.
This has helped many countries to develop when they had issues of downturn in their economy.
I believe that having over N3 trillion available to stimulate local production is going on now.
One of the things that we have done today is also trying to strengthen the process of awarding contracts, this will go a long way in helping budget implementation.
It would go a long way in ensuring that most of the funds are available as quickly as possible and jobs are actually completed.” he said.
He however commended his colleagues for the passage of the bill. Aliyu Sabi, the chairman senate committee for media and public affairs, said that the membership of the counsel does not provide room for some of the other procurement to get that insight.
He added that professional institutions should be improved upon to educate citizens on procurement.
“My worry is out of experience. I had an instance where somebody thought that procurement of freeze drier which is used for vaccine production was procurement of freezer.
They were worried because when we got to the field, they realised that a freeze drier was a very mighty building with heavy equipment. We should look at the professional bodies we have that can add value,” he said.
During the debate, the lawmakers went into committee of the whole to consider the bill before it was eventually passed.
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