The Nigeria Revenue Service has pledged financial and technical support for the Bureau of Public Procurement’s proposed review of the Public Procurement Act 2007, aimed at reducing abandoned government projects and strengthening accountability in public spending.
The Executive Chairman of the NRS, Dr Zacch Adedeji, gave the assurance on Tuesday during a strategic meeting with the Director-General of the BPP, Dr Adebowale Adedokun, and his delegation at the NRS headquarters in Abuja.
Adedeji said the agency would provide personnel, funding and technical expertise to support the proposed reforms, drawing on its experience with Nigeria’s recent tax reforms.
“I am also publicly promising that we will not only give you human resources, but God’s will, we will provide financial resources,” he said.
He said improving public procurement would encourage voluntary tax compliance by assuring taxpayers that government revenue was being spent efficiently and responsibly.
“Anytime I see abandoned projects, I see it as tax collected and being wasted, because it is either paid from the tax collected or the loan that we’ve taken that we’ll use tax to pay in the future,” Adedeji said.
Adedeji added that government projects funded through borrowing ultimately created repayment obligations for taxpayers, stressing the need to ensure their completion to safeguard public resources.
The NRS chairman questioned whether some provisions of the procurement law, introduced under different economic conditions, remained relevant, particularly restrictions on advance payments and thresholds for contract approvals.
He praised the BPP for helping to complete the NRS headquarters despite procurement challenges and directed officials to set up a technical committee to support the proposed amendments to the law.
