The Public Procurement and Concession Commissions, PPCC, was established by an act of the Legislature in September 2005 with the sole mandate to oversee all public procurement and concession processes in Liberia.
The act was amended and restated in 2010 to regulate all forms of Public Procurement and Concessions; and provide institutional structures for Public Procurement; Concessions and stipulates method and procedures for Public Procurement and Concessions processes.
With the economic woes currently facing the economy, it is important for government’s partners, ministries, agencies, and all interested partners to support the workings of PPCC so as to safe guide government from fraud, wasteful spending, and the proper utilization of tax payers’ monies.
In an effort to uphold the mandate of the PPCC, and promote good governance, accountability and transparency for the better of all Liberians, it is of importance that government’s partners, ministries, agencies comply in a timely and orderly manner in achieving the compliance monitoring, review visitation to all procuring and concession granting entities within the sector.
Making the PPCC more functional, attractive, and viable to potential partners, ministries and agencies, the management in 2019, organized a capacity building program to improve the skills of 145 procurement practitioners from various government’ entities, at Chartered Institute of Purchasing and Supply (CIPS), a well acclaimed, smartly professional UK based Public Procurement Certification program.
At the same time, in keeping with Part 1 (c) of the PPCA (2010), the Commission conducted capacity building for counties based procuring entities from all 15 counties in 2019; and awareness Workshop for heads of Procuring Entities. Additional, a workshop was held for Private Sector to convey information on tendering processes in an effort to boost competition and participation in the biding process.
Meanwhile, the Public Procurement and Concessions Commission entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the United Methodist University (UMU), in an effort to build collaboration and construct a learning environment in the area of public procurement, homogenizing the Bachelor of Business Administration Degree in Procurement and Supply Chain Management currently being offered by the institution; and directed at increasing professionalization of procurement practices in the country.
With continuous strives in making the sector strong without political intervention or influence, aimed at maintaining the core value of integrity, commitment, respect, innovation, personal responsibility and trust, the Commission launched the 2019/2020 Compliance Monitoring and Review Exercises of 100 procuring and concession granting entities with the support of United Nations Development Program (UNDP).
The initiative is in consonance with the PPCA Sections (5)(a), (e) and (g), of the Amended and Restated Public Procurement and Concessions Act of 2010 (PPCA).
This activity is characterized by visitations from PPCC compliance monitors liaising with the entities procurement units to gather information on approved processes and provide clarifications on processes and procedures where applicable, and to ascertain abidance of procedures as per the PPC Act.
It is presently undergoing. It should be noted that the report from this exercise will be submitted to the National Legislature and the Office of the President as required by Section 20 (2) of the PPCA and also published.
This mandate has not been effectuated reportedly since 2014, and now a reform and radical approach on monitoring; and inspection of all public procurement and concessions processes in Liberia is rigorous under the leadership of J. Roseyln Kowo, Executive Director, PPCC.