Today in the health sector, there are some drugs that governments agencies buy that are produced locally. But because there is no law that stops them from buying them abroad, they would go and buy the same drug that is made in the UK instead of buying the one produced here.
We have a lot of our Para agencies that do not support those that locally procure shirts, shoes and canvasses etc. We looked around when we went to the Aba Trade Fair Made in Nigeria. Some of these items can be bought here. Ministries buy pencils, chalk from abroad. Initially you might talk about standard but it is like that all over the world. When we start we will improve the standard.
When we banned importation of furniture in Nigeria, we didn’t have enough people who were producing furniture. But now we have them in abundance. The furniture I use is made from a factory in Kwara.
Like I said, passing a law like that will stimulate the economy. We will challenge the executive to make sure that they respect the law when we pass it.
Secondly, in the public procurement law that we are passing, we are reducing the number of huddles for the bidding process. Sometimes, even after passing the budget, before they award contracts they advertise, screen, this and that. It will take sometimes four to five months to do all those things. Before everything is finished it will take up to a year. We have looked at it; we have cut down some of the days and hurdles.
We have shortened the time so that money will come into the system. After a budget is passed money is not in the system. If a system encourages that money will still sit at the central bank for another three, four months, the economy will not move.
What we have done also in advanced payment is to give flexibility to it. It used to be 15 percent. In some cases like in works you may need to give more money in the dry season to get a lot of work done. These are the laws that make a difference.
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