CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1   Background of the study
Government all over the world has a common purpose which is to care for its citizens. This purpose has been seen by many to constitute the sine-qua-non for the existence of any government. However, the achievement of this objective has been bedeviled by corruptions and irregularities in the activities and business of government (Nwafor, 2013). In order to restore the lost confidence of the citizens on the activities and process of government, policies and enactments such as the Public Procurement Act 2007 was established to curb the excesses in government activities and business with a view to ensuring proper regulation in the procurement process. Also government must ensure transparency and accountability in its dealings both in business transaction and non-business activities (Adewole, 2014).
Probity is believed to be the ultimate aim of providing for the happiness and welfare of the citizenry and should be the emphasis in the public life (Fayomi, 2013). Since independence in 1960, Nigeria has passed through military and civilian rule, the military are authoritative and rule with decree and the civilian are less authoritative and govern with the constitution and the laws made by the legislature (Jacob, 2010). Both style of ruling engaged in businesses which the large part is the award of contract (Jacob, 2010). The process of awarding these contracts are usually questionable as most of the rich men and women today became rich overnight upon the execution of government contracts. The irregularities in this process can be said to be the main cause of the underdevelopment in this part of the world.
According to Ray (1998) to achieve development, requires making some hard choice, punching and jettisoning old methods of doing things that have contributed to underdevelopment. Prior to 2007, to regulate the award of contracts was difficult as there was no direct statutory provision for it in Nigeria and the result is that the award of contract becomes a means by which the government and the ruling elites reward their friends and cronies and by which they too amass wealth (Jacob, 2010). At this time it was extremely difficult to get best value for money in public procurement practices (Onyekpere, 2009). Federal government of Nigeria under the President Olusegun Obasanjo administration seeing the level of corruption in the public procurement process, commission World Bank to carry out an investigation into Nigeria procurement process. At the end of the investigation, World Bank came up with a report called Country Procurement Assessment Report (CPAR). The report revealed that Nigeria was losing average of $10 billion annually due to various irregularities associated with public procurement and contract awards. As responds to these problems public procurement bill was sent to national assembly under President Olusegun Obasanjo regime and was eventually pass into law under the Umaru Musa Yar’Adua administration (Adewole, 2014).