TCN’s Emergency Procurement Followed Due Process, Says Consultant

A consultant with the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN), Oyofo Sule, has clarified that the company followed the procedures in accordance with the Nigerian Procurement Act in its recent emergency procurement. Sule spoke Saturday in Abuja while addressing journalists under the platform of the Civil Society Organisations Budget Implementation, Assessment, Evaluation, and Monitoring Committee. According […]

A consultant with the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN), Oyofo Sule, has clarified that the company followed the procedures in accordance with the Nigerian Procurement Act in its recent emergency procurement.

Sule spoke Saturday in Abuja while addressing journalists under the platform of the Civil Society Organisations Budget Implementation, Assessment, Evaluation, and Monitoring Committee.

According to him, emergency procurement was initiated by TCN to quickly effect some repairs in some of its electrical infrastructure.

“TCN has over 1,800 km of 330kV and 132kV high-voltage transmission lines and transmission towers traversing the entire nation, and several through very difficult terrains including swamps, forests, areas prone to flooding that cause rapid erosion of tower bases, and natural disasters.

“Also, some of these towers and lines pass through land mines in insurgency-prone areas, which is inevitable as the lines must convey electricity to citizens.

“These difficult terrains negatively impact transmission towers and also make it easy to vandalise the towers and lines, underscoring the need for emergency procurement.

“Also, the scourge of insurgency and vandalism threaten transmission towers bearing the high-tension lines, and when these towers are attacked, they must be repaired almost immediately to forestall the total collapse of the tower, which often would drag and pull down a number of towers along the same line route, if not quickly remedied, causing full system or partial collapse of the nation’s grid.

“In this case, the method of emergency procurement to quickly effect repairs would be adopted”, he said.

The TCN consultant further explained that Section 43 of the Public Procurement Act 2003 states, “A procuring entity may, for this Act, carry out emergency procurement where the country is either seriously threatened by or actually confronted with a disaster, catastrophe, war, insurrection, or act of God.”

He said the condition or quality of goods, equipment, buildings, or publicly owned capital goods may seriously deteriorate unless action is urgently and necessarily taken to maintain their actual value or usefulness.

Furthermore, he explained that under this condition, TCN can undertake emergency procurement of the projects.

“The Bureau for Public Procurement (BPP) is the government agency saddled with the responsibility of enforcing the monitoring and prior review of thresholds set by the council for the application of the provisions of the Procurement Act by procuring entities.

“They stipulate to all procuring entities the procedures and documentation prerequisites for the issuance of “No Objection” for contracts to be awarded.

“Being professionals with expertise in the procurement process, they review all procurement submissions as they relate to the contracts, including those listed in the publication.

“TCN notes that the BPP thoroughly reviewed the contract documents before granting TCN “No Objection” and requested further clarification and documentation to support the method of procurement before they were approved”, he said.

Sule said that contrary to the allegation of inflated contract prices, the Bureau observed that TCN made some savings through contract negotiations held with various contractors before arriving at a reasonably fair and acceptable price limit, considering the emergency nature of the projects in question and the current market process.