The Anambra State Government under Governor Chukwuma Soludo has maintained that it has never entertained the hitherto status quo in the state, whereby developmental projects were awarded for political patronage.
Across parts of the state, there abound abandoned or shabbily-done projects, awarded to political friends and cronies by the previous state administration of Chief Willie Obiano.
Fears among the people are that since Governor Soludo was supported by his predecessor, Obiano, the status quo will remain, impoverishing the people more.
But in a chat with a TNC correspondent in his office in Awka, Architect Okey Ezeobi, the General Manager, of Anambra State Bureau of Public Procurement, said the Chukwuma Soludo regime in its efforts to get Anambra people the greatest value for their money, is ensuring that best practices prevail in the award of projects.
According to him, all contractors handling any project in the state were properly vetted and found to be qualified before they got the projects.
He also made it clear that the past state governor has not in any way, influenced the present administration in the area of project awards, stating that Governor Soludo has never called him to award any contracts to any contractor, nor had he demanded an increase in the cost of any contract.
“Procurement is the soul of government. All the infrastructure, the school, and the payments are gotten by way of procurement.
“One thing that is synonymous with the administration of Mr Governor, Prof Charles Chukwuma Soludo is disruptive change.
“Under his administration, Anambra Government has moved from what people see government as, to what government ought to be, in terms of accountability and transparency and getting value for money.
“In the first one year, the bureau saved about N10.4 billion and still saving more since then.
“Many times, the people ask the question, how the governor gets money to execute all these projects going on everywhere. The answer is simple- prudent expenditure, fiscal discipline, and best value for money.
“The era of over-bloated contracts for political patronage is gone,” he said.
Arch Ezeobi made it clear that the Bureau has made the procurement process in the state as transparent as possible, to begin to get the people’s buy-in into what the state government is doing in the area of project delivery.
“Procurement falls into the fifth pillar of the Soludo administration which is governance and value system.
“Today, we have an established Bureau for Public Procurement. People can view whatever contract has been awarded and to whom. By this people get to know all the programmes of government and there is no secrecy anymore.
“Also, on our portals, the pricing and bidding is made open so that anybody can interrogate the pricing or the entire process.
“Eventually, through this process, we arrive at the most responsive bid and that is a major paradigm shift in the state governance process.
“Our portal on the Anambra website is probably the most viewed,” Ezeobi claimed.
On the delays experienced in the execution of some projects across the state, the Anambra BPP boss attributed it to the inevitable Nigerian intervention which is beyond the common man.
This unstable economic environment, especially the unanticipated hike in construction materials, he noted, is bound to affect project delivery and result in the overshoot of the project timeline.
Ezeobi also revealed that the Bureau has extended its training on knowledge of the procurement laws, to government officials at the state and local government levels, to ensure that they understand where the Soludo administration is going with respect to transparency and accountability.
“State and local government officials have been trained and the training will be sustained to enable them to keep pace with the procurement law.
“I agree that the Local Government System has been adjudged as a hybrid for corruption but definitely not under the present administration of Governor Soludo,” he said.
