Electronic Public Procurement in Nigeria: Some lessons from EU 

The main thrust of the project is to analyse the lessons Nigeria may learn from the EU e-procurement law and Practice.

The Public Procurement Bill was only recently signed into law on 4 June 2008. Before this time, there was no specialised federal or state law governing the conduct and practice of public procurement in Nigeria. This new law now brings to fore a number of fundamental challenges relating to transparency, accountability and good governance in the award of public sector contracts and the procurement of supplies and services by the government. Given its infancy, it is difficult at this stage to gauge the potential failures or successes of the law. What is noticeable though is that e-procurement has not featured prominently in the law.

In view of the current advancement in digital technology and electronic transactions and coupled with the underlying currents of globalisation, this project seeks to identify the challenges and opportunities held by e-public procurement especially in the context of Nigeria as a developing country. Further, drawing on the ‘best practices' in e-public procurement in the EU, the project will identify the potential and actual benefits of e-public procurement to Nigeria in particular and Africa in general. The project will also discuss ways of overcoming the challenges of adopting e-procurement in the public sector in Nigeria. In conclusion, the project will advance arguments as to why e-public procurement is beneficial towards not only fostering a sound economy, but also transforming Nigeria into a transparent, efficient and corrupt-free business environment for firms bidding from the EU and around the world. It is expected that the findings of the project will lead a scholarly publication.

Mohammed L Ahmadu