A former presidential aide who served three Presidents in the United States, Dr. Allan Burman is amongst top speakers expected at the 2014 National Conference on Public Procurement (NACOPP), scheduled for November 10th and 11th, at the Transcorp Hilton Hotel, Abuja.
The conference, to be declared open by President Goodluck Jonathan, is being organised by the nascent National Public Procurement Forum (NPPF). The NPPF according to Conference Planning Committee Chair, Ms. Arinola Giwa Amu, is a union between Public Procurement entities at the Federal and State levels in a renewed bid to forge a working relationships at key tiers of government.
Giwa Amu, who is also Senior Special Adviser, Due Process, to the Delta State Governor, revealed that Federal and State Public Procurement entities are convinced that the procurement reform will grow better if awareness is continuously created amongst public procurement functionaries.
It is the reason why NPPF is, besides inviting Mr. Burman, also expecting Executive Director of the Washington based International Law Institute (ILI), Ms. Kim Phan and notable Nigerian procurement scholar, Dr. Sope Williams Elegbe from the University of Stellenbosch in South Africa.
Burman, she narrated, has the unique experience of serving under three US Presidents including Ronald Reagan, George Bush (Sr) and Bill Clinton, before establishing the reputable Jefferson Consulting in Washington.
While Phan is prominent in the evolution and development of the Public Procurement reform in Nigeria from 1999, Williams Elegbe is expected to provide a rich African perspective through a comparative examination of the reform progress amongst African countries.
Giwa Amu had earlier stressed at a press conference that though Nigeria has a federal system of government, where the federating units have rights to enact and implement independent laws. The Federal and the state governments have however decided to come together under this forum in the greater interest of the country.
The Forum is made up of one procurement head representing each of the 6 geo-political zones, and the Bureau of Public Procurement at the Federal level as chair. Membership of the forum from the geo-political zones will be rotational and be determined within each of the Zones.
She added: “the conference shall have representatives from all the states of the federation and the Federal Government which will be represented by the Bureau of Public Procurement (BPP). It is important to state that the public procurement reform in Nigeria has come to stay. This is because it is one sure way to ensure transparency, competition and quality in the public contracting system.
“Developing nations of the world are partly defined by their commitment to due process. We cannot afford to be left behind! One sure way of ensuring progress in the implementation of the public procurement procedures is to have a synergy between all levels Government in its application”