Halilu Tasks NASENI Procurement Officers On High Level Procurement Expertise To Achieve Agency Goals
By Angeline Mgbele, Bureau Chief, Northern Nigeria
The Executive Vice Chairman/CEO, National Agency for Science and Engineering Infrastructure (NASENI), Khalil Suleiman Halilu, has said that achieving the Agency’s goals require a high level of professional proficiency and technical expertise in procurement management. This call, Mr. Halilu said, is essential in order to achieve the overall mandate and goals of the agency.
This is contained in a press statement e-signed by the Director of Information at NASENI, Olusegun Ayeoyenikan.
In his welcome address at the opening of ceremony of the 2024 three-day in-house training for procurement officers and other participating staff from NASENI system-wide, which commenced on Tuesday in Abuja, Mr. Halilu stated that the Agency wanted to be the best in everything it did in order to deliver quality services to achieve the overall goals of Mr. President’s Renewed Hope Agenda.
The NASENI EVC/CEO while highlighting the importance of the training, said it was designed to equip officers involved in procurement with the professional capacity needed to manage NASENI’s procurement processes effectively and in full compliance with the Public Procurement Act 2007.
While assuring that NASENI was committed to complying with everything outlined in the Act, Halilu said “the importance of the workshop cannot be overstated, particularly for newly hired or deployed officers. It is essential that incumbent officers are trained and retrained to align with NASENI’s vision and mandate.”
He admonished participants to put into practice what they would learn in their daily work to make a difference in how they carried out their roles and responsibilities and urged them to take the training serious and gain from the extensive knowledge and experience of the resource persons, leading to improved service delivery.
Also, in his keynote address Ag. Director-General, Bureau of Public Procurement (BPP), Barr. Olusegun Omotola represented by the Director of Training, Dr. Adebowale Adedokun, said NASENI had a crucial role in national infrastructure development thus building skills and competencies were critical for the execution of transparent and efficient public procurement which guaranteed good value for money.
He noted that every government agency must comply with the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF) Circulars on procurement plans and procurement records and that no procurement process could commence without properly approved procurement plan via the use of the NOCOPO system and must have a full-fledged procurement department/unit/division manned by BPP trained/certified officers.
In addition, he urged NASENI to be very thorough and careful in the discharge of its responsibilities in the public procurement process with the highest sense of accountability, ethics and integrity, saying it was expected that at the end of the training, all factors militating against effective performance of procurement related activities and budget implementation would have been addressed.
