Dr. Agada Links Poverty to Procurement Act Non-Implementation

Architect Dr. Peter Agada, the Presidential Candidate of the Young Progressives Party, has attributed Nigeria's persistent poverty and 27 years of underdevelopment to the failure to implement the Bureau of Public Procurement Act, which aims to establish the National Council on Public Procurement as outlined in Section 2 of the Establishment Act 2007. In a statement released on Monday, Agada argued that implementing the Act would enable the government to scrutinize 90 percent of projects that have consumed Nigeria's resources, promoting transparency and accountability.

He criticized the procurement system from 1999 to the present for neglecting its core objectives of economy, efficiency, value for money, transparency, and competition. Agada's proposed strategy includes dividing projects into two parts, with one managed by direct labor, and he estimates that savings from forensic audits could fund his Ward Intervention Initiative, which aims to allocate N40 million non-FAAC funds to every ward in Nigeria.

He outlined the financial requirements for this initiative, estimating a total of about N32 trillion needed for 8,809 wards.