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The Bo City Council has today, Monday 25th July, 2022 opened bids for projects to be undertaken within the Municipality.
The projects for which bids were received and opened are: The Construction of Shed for vehicles; Construction of Slaughter house and water well; Rehabilitation of RC Model Primary School; and Rehabilitation of Salina and Musa Street Markets. All bids according to the Procurement Officer of the Bo City Council, Gibril T. Mambu were advertised on three widely read national dailies and that it was a National Competitive Bidding (NCB).
Welcoming bid opening committee members to the Chamber of the Bo City Council, Chief Administrator of the Bo City Council, Veronica J. Fortune informed all that “funds for the said projects are from the Council’s Own Source Revenue.”
The Chief Administrator stated that the people of Bo City day in and out pay their taxes to the City Council and thus it is the responsibility of the Council to ensure those taxes paid are used for the development of the Municipality. “It is all over now that Central government has approved grants but people should know that bulk of that grant is for devolved functions and only a minute amount of it is for Council operations,” she informed.
Representing Civil Society Organizations, Claude M. Sheriff said that bid opening processes are not the alpha and omega for civil society activists when it comes to projects undertaken by government institutions/agencies.
He stated that they will be monitoring the progress of the projects as that is keen; adding that the projects for which the bids have been opened are “timely.” Claude M. Sheriff emphasized that the CSO’s “want to ensure not just delivery, but quality and timely delivery” and ended up assuring bidders of fairness in the procurement process.
He ended up by charging them to hesitate not with complaints to the Civil Society Organizations, National Public Procurement Authority (NPPA) or even the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) about any mistreatment insofar these projects are concerned.
Mohamed Williams, representing the NPPA reminded all present that the NPPA is mandated to “regulate and monitor Public procurement in Sierra Leone as well as to advise government functionaries on what is right with regards Public procurement.”
NPPA’s Mohamed Williams stated that since they “ensure compliance by all procuring entities,” they were at the bid opening process to ensure due diligence is paid by the Bo City Council.
“We are here to look at the availability of documents tendered by each bidder and during evaluation stage, we shall be looking at the authenticity of tendered documents thus I admonish all to observe the process which shall definitely be fair,” he wrapped up.
The Anti-Corruption Commission’s Southern Regional Manager, Momodu Sittar, in a statement rendered an “ultimate advice to potential winners” of the contracts stating that the people of Bo City and the ACC wants “good performance.”
He furthered that value for the “peoples’ money” should be ensured and as such, “whatever is given for the people of Sierra Leone should be used for the right purpose.” He ended up stressing that “ACC is watching.”
