Auctioneers decry civil servants’ interference, secret bidding
Nigeria Association of Auctioneers (NAA), has complained of undue interference from government agencies, saying this is one of the biggest challenges the business of auctioneering is facing.
Besides, they also accused civil servants of indulging in secret auctions, especially by condemning government properties in order to dispose of them through sales, including selling to themselves.
The Secretary-General, NAA, Isibor Abhulimen, who made the claim recently in Abuja, said: “Secret bidding is a crime and that is what the private sector, and government establishment have been using to thrive, steal, and kill the government.”
This is even as NAA claimed it is generates over N100billion for the federal government annually, at a two-day training organised by the body in partnership with the South African College of Auctioneering.
According to Abhulimen, the Association has the capacity to generate over N150billion if given the opportunity to discharge its functions without interference from civil servants.
His words: “The value we generate to the Government runs into over N100billion, and that is why the body is very relevant in the area of Internally Generated Revenue (IGR). This is why the President and Commander in Chief, Muhammad Buhari, made the remarks last year that from sales of recovered assets, we can fund 10 to 15 per cent of our national budget.
He noted that the financial regulation states that every item that is procured after six years becomes a zero value, adding that auctioneers have been able to upscale that particular value from a zero value to the very scrap value.
“We are able to generate up to 15 to 20 per cent of the original procurement budget that the government has. If the government has a budget of one trillion for buying of vehicles for different parastatals and equipping different offices, at the end of every six years, the financial regulation stated clearly that you have to dispose these items. The government will not begin to spend recurrent expenditure maintaining items that you cannot have a quantum value for, it has to be disposed.
“If we are getting 10 per cent that means we are doing over a hundred billion, then if we go as far as competitive bidding, we will do as much as 15 per cent and that means we will do as much as N150billion from a procurement value of one trillion, so we have the capacity to do even more.”
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