PRESS STATEMENT
EFSCRJ Concerned with Decision to Grant Procurement Exemption to Public Bodies
The Edward Francis Small Centre for Right and Justice is deeply involved in regards to the determination of the Gambia Public Procurement Authority (GPPA) and authorised by the National Assembly on 1st November 2024 to grant 9 public establishments to do their procurement with out in search of approval from GPPA. These 9 establishments are,
- Ministry of Interior,
- Ministry of Communication and Digital Economy,
- Office of the Ombudsman,
- Ministry of Transport, Works, and Infrastructure,
- Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Welfare,
- Public Utilities Regulatory Authority,
- Central Bank of the Gambia,
- Independent Electoral Commission and
- Gambia Tourism and Hospitality Institute.
We word that the GPPA is counting on Section 12(4) to (7) of the GPPA Act to grant these exemptions. The Act states in Section 12(4) {that a} procuring group shall endure a capability evaluation efficiently earlier than it’s approved to obtain with out in search of GPPA approval. The exemptions final for 2 years below Subsection 5 which could be prolonged for an additional two years below Subsection 6. These sections have been first inserted within the GPPA Act in 2014, after which maintained within the 2022 amendments as a part of the capabilities of GPPA. The authentic GPPA Act 2001 didn’t have these provisions.
We discover these provisions to be extremely vulnerable to abuse and encourage bribery. Secondly these provisions additionally fall wanting the ideas and requirements of procurement as they decrease the checks and balances to stop corruption. Experts on procurement have famous that one of the corruption-prone authorities actions is public procurement. This is just because public procurement entails large volumes of transactions with monetary pursuits at stake, which entails shut interplay between public officers and companies, and a number of different stakeholders.
This is why procurement and anti-corruption consultants have famous that in most international locations, the abuse of government-spending processes has turn out to be the gateway to self-enrichment. The Gambia is one instance of such self-enrichment by means of procurement. The proof of this may very well be discovered within the sequence of audits of public establishments by the National Audit Office, with the most recent being the particular audit of the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC). Yet IEC is without doubt one of the establishments to be exempted from in search of prior GPPA approval.
In mild of the foregoing, EF Small Centre, as a transparency and accountability group, rejects each the choice of GPPA and the approval by the National Assembly to grant these 9 establishments exemption from in search of prior approval. In this regard we hereby demand the next:
1. GPPA ought to disclose the complete stories of the capability assessments carried out for every of those establishments consistent with Section 7 of the Access to Information Act which requires proactive disclosure of such stories by public our bodies. The incontrovertible fact that NAO might expose huge procurement malpractices within the IEC raises the query as to the standard of capability evaluation carried out by GPPA on the IEC such that it offers the Commission approval to obtain with out in search of approval.
2. We urge the Minister of Finance and Economic Affairs to trigger the assessment and modification of the GPPA Act to take away your complete Sections 12(4) to (7) to make sure that there isn’t a room for exemptions therefore no room for bribery and corruption. We urge that the GPPA Act mirror the 2001 laws which doesn’t present such capabilities to GPPA to permit procuring organizations to obtain with out in search of approval.
3. The authority to conduct procurement needs to be below the management and path of the GPPA and consistent with worldwide ideas and requirements of procurement.
We word with concern the excessive incidence of bribery and corruption in Government procurement which has been incontrovertibly evidenced in audit stories, commissions of inquiry, and stories by CSOs and investigative journalists. The GPPA Act, with the presence of Sections 12(4) to (7), successfully legitimize and legalize bribery and corruption which should massively concern the Government.
As a transparency and accountability physique, EF Small Centre will search political and authorized measures for the modification of the GPPA Act and to cease these exemptions to make sure authorized and institutional loopholes are closed to stop wastage of public funds, bribery and corruption by means of procurement.
In the Spirit of Edward Francis Small, For The Gambia, Homeland.
