Wednesday, December 31, 2025 - President Bola Tinubu has approved a new debarment policy that will sanction contractors who execute substandard projects or abandon government jobs.
The Director-General of the Bureau of Public Procurement
(BPP), Adebowale Adedokun, disclosed this in an exclusive interview in Abuja,
explaining that the policy empowers the government to blacklist erring
contractors both locally and internationally.
“Debarment policy means if a contractor does a bad job, if a
contractor fails to deliver quality work, that contractor can be blacklisted,”
Adedokun said. “Once a contractor who has collected government money refuses to
do the job, or does a bad job, or did not complete the job, we will recommend
blacklisting of that company, not only in Nigeria but internationally.”
He stressed that the policy is not only punitive but also
designed to reward competence, noting that contractors who deliver quality work
will continue to be supported. He cited ongoing infrastructure projects as
evidence of improving standards.
“Please take a ride to Lagos–Calabar; you will see quality
of job. Take a ride to Abuja–Kaduna–Kano; you will see good job. Take a look at
the ongoing work between Mararaba and Keffi. Look at electricity; today,
there’s a lot of improvement,” he said. “This is because everything that
they want to buy, every equipment they want to buy, they must show us
specifications.”
Adedokun said the BPP will also intensify enforcement of
local content policies in line with President Tinubu’s Renewed Hope Agenda,
including new initiatives targeted at women, youths and vulnerable groups.
“We are now going to enforce the Nigerian First policy as
directed by Mr. President. We are going to introduce community-based
procurement,” he said. “And with all of this, the women affirmative
procurement—these are new things that the President wants to unleash in
procurement so that the youth, the women, and vulnerable groups will have
certain projects given to them.”
According to the BPP boss, these reforms are already
yielding financial benefits. He disclosed that the agency saved the Federal
Government about ₦1.1 trillion within one year by blocking inflated contract
sums and tightening scrutiny of public projects.
“When I resumed, what I noticed was that the President has
outlined a lot of initiatives under the Renewed Hope Agenda,” he said. “The
question was how to ensure procurement does not become a bottleneck. What we
did was to make procurement an enabler—an instrument for transparency,
accountability, and value for money.”
He explained that a dedicated Price Intelligence Unit was
established to benchmark project costs and prevent overpricing, allowing
government funds to stretch further.
“If a hospital was proposed at ₦10 billion and benchmarking
shows it should be ₦9 billion, that ₦1 billion saved can now be used for other
projects,” Adedokun said. “In some cases, agencies that would have bought
10 vehicles were able to get 15 because of the savings.”
He expressed confidence that the reforms would help curb
corruption, improve public service delivery and reduce poverty.
“You will see a rapid, massive transformation in the way
Nigerians do things,” he said. “Let’s put Nigerian people first, and with that,
we can achieve the dream of a Nigeria that works for everyone.”
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