Procurement professionals fighting own Bill - Bahati
Mr Bahati also criticised procurement professional for prioritising foreign companies over local ones in large scale projects. FILE PHOTO
What you need to know:
- Mr Bahati also criticised procurement professionals for intentionally prioritising foreign companies over local ones, arguing that they should be patriotic in a bid to offer Ugandans opportunities in the procurement sphere.
- Drafted. The amendments, which were first drafted in 2016, are yet to be debated because of resistance from procurement professionals.
Kampala. State Finance minister in charge of Planning David Bahati has said the Public Procurement and Disposal Law amendment has delayed “because procurement professionals are fighting it”.
Speaking during the seventh Institute of Procurement Professionals of Uganda dinner in Kampala at the weekend, Mr Bahati said there is an in-house battle against the Procurement Amendment Bill.
“The information we get is, some procurement officials have been fighting this Bill. All the time, the accounting officers are against this Bill,” he said, without giving details of who was fight the proposed amendments.
The Bill was initiated in 2016 with the input of different stakeholders on what the new law should look like. However, the amendments are is yet to be debated.
Mr Bahati also said that accounting officers did not, during the review, put forward proposals such as capping the procurement period and administrative reviews, which could explain the delays.
The administrative reviews, he said, would put all procurement procedures in the open thus curbing any would be fraudulent activities.
“We wanted to cap the procurement period. We wanted administrative reviews but because some people know that the longer the period it takes, the more centres it take people’s focus and they do other things,” he said.
However, he revealed that the Bill is expected to go to Cabinet next month (December) and could be passed next year in February.
The procurement policy, which is also expected to be passed in December has, according to Mr Bahati, been delayed by the amendments and secretariat of IPPU. Mr Moses Kirungu, a Summit Consulting procurement consultant, said the challenge at the moment is selecting an efficient vendor and not implementation of contracts.
He urged procurement professionals to support government in implementing policies to develop the economy.
Citing the ‘Buy Uganda Build Uganda’ policy, he asked procurement professionals to aid local companies build capacity to supply government.
Be patriotic
Mr Bahati also criticised procurement professionals for intentionally prioritising foreign companies over local ones, arguing that they should be patriotic in a bid to offer Ugandans opportunities in the procurement sphere.
