THE Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) on Tuesday, December 8, trained directors and heads of procurement of ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) of government on how to better tackle corruption and procurement abuse in the country.

The workshop, held at the commission in Abuja, was organised to address persistent procurement violations uncovered during the ICPC’s constituency and executive project tracking exercises across the nation.

The training was attended by the Chairman of House Committee on Anti-Corruption, Kayode Moshood Akiolu; Director General of Bureau of Public Procurement, Adebowale Adedokun and the Director General of Nigeria Building and Road Research Institute, Samson Duna.

Declaring the event open on behalf of the ICPC Chairman, Musa Adamu Aliyu, the Commission’s Secretary, Clifford Okwudiri Oparaodu, said procurement remained the single largest vulnerability point in public finance, accounting for an estimated 10 to 25 per cent of Nigeria’s GDP.

He warned that the volume of corruption linked to procurement made it imperative for MDAs to commit to transparency.

“Public procurement is where policy meets practice,” he said, adding “It is where budgets either translate into real projects for Nigerians or disappear into private pockets. You know what we mean, it is either the work gets done or it goes somewhere else entirely. That is where our interest lies.”

The ICPC Chairman noted that the commission had repeatedly discovered “contract splitting, inflated invoices by as much as 200 to 300 per cent. He also cited phantom contracts, repeated projects in annual budgets, duplicated projects, and mobilisation funds that vanish without any work done.

According to him, these practices have become too rampant to ignore.

Aliyu noted that it was no coincidence that the workshop came up the day the United Nations set out as World Anti-Corruption Day.

He said the ICPC’s Constituency and Executive Projects Tracking Initiative (CPTI), introduced in 2019, was a turning point.

“The approach was revolutionary in its simplicity and outcome, as physically tracked projects from inception to completion across all 36 states and the FCT demonstrated all stakeholders, such as contractors, public officials, and project sponsors, need to be held accountable. 

“It also led to direct community engagement, where each community is expected to take ownership and interest in every project being executed, cited, and executed in the community. Beyond individual problems and cases, CPTI revealed structural problems.”

He said the commission had identified several recurring infractions, including projects being cited on private properties belonging to sponsors or their cronies, violations of the Public Procurement Act 2007, and instances where executive government projects, grant-driven initiatives or identical interventions were duplicated.

He noted that project vehicles and equipment were often converted to personal use, while poor or nonexistent needs assessments had led to white-elephant projects across various communities, among others.

He added that e-procurement, if properly implemented with political will, funding and capacity building, could eliminate human discretion, reduce abuse, and build an auditable trail for every procurement action.

However, he explained that monitoring alone could not solve procurement abuses, noting that political will, adequate funding, capacity building and strong change-management systems were needed to make reforms work.

Aliyu explained that without these, e-procurement would fail. He urged lawmakers to strengthen oversight, close loopholes in the procurement law and support anti-corruption agencies with better funding.

He advised procurement officers to embrace transparency, enforce internal controls, resist political pressure and cooperate with oversight bodies to curb fraud.

He emphasised that the commission remained committed to promoting accountability and urged participants to act on what they had learned, stressing that millions of Nigerians still lacked basic services and that corruption thrived when left unchecked.

Speaking at the event, the Director-General of the Nigerian Building and Road Research Institute (NBRRI), Samson Duna, said ICPC’s involvement had reshaped how MDAs conduct procurement and project oversight.

He explained that in the past, many agencies approved projects with little or no documentation, but ICPC’s demand for evidence had strengthened internal controls.

“ICPC brought sanity into the system,” he said, stressing, “Today, no desk officer can come to me and say, ‘Sir, approve this contractor because you know him.’ They will tell you immediately, I must go to the site first. That is the kind of discipline we are talking about.”

Duna said NBRRI had insisted on multiple site visits, photo evidence with timestamps, and detailed progress reports before payment is approved.

“As CEO, I no longer approve anything unless the file has passed through the consultant, the desk officer, the procurement director and then reaches me with evidence…Before now, contractors were being paid within two weeks even without proper verification. That era is gone.”

He revealed that after assessing more than 80 collapsed buildings nationwide, NBRRI found that substandard materials accounted for at least 30 per cent of failures. He urged ICPC to collaborate more closely with research institutions to ensure strong infrastructure standards.

The Director-General of the Bureau of Public Procurement (BPP), Adebowale Adedokun, also lauded ICPC for enforcing procurement discipline, noting that the amended ICPC Act, which criminalises failure to carry out procurement planning, had significantly improved compliance.

According to him, procurement remained Nigeria’s most critical defence against corruption.

“If we are truly going to prevent or fight corruption, strengthening procurement activities and working closely with anti-corruption agencies is the only way forward,” he said.

Adedokun said the Federal Government recently approved a new policy which, for the first time, provides a legal basis to prosecute contractors who deliver substandard projects.

“This policy has placed Nigeria on the global stage. For the first time in our history, we can now legally hold contractors accountable when they do shoddy work. That deserves applause.”

He warned that procurement audits must become routine if abandoned projects, losses and wastages are to be curbed.

“The delays, the insecurity, the collapsed infrastructure – all these things happen because Nigerians do not have equal opportunities to do business fairly.

“Corruption will fight back, but we can win the battle through systems, processes, adherence to good governance will help us to do well.”

He urged participants to think about long-term implications.