The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation consolidated on its tradition of openness and on Tuesday with the public harvesting and opening of 575 bids submitted by firms seeking to secure the insurance renewal contract for the Corporation’s oil and non-oil assets.
Speaking at the event, the NNPC Group General Manager, Risk Management and Insurance, Modupe Bameke, stated that apart from being a requirement of the Bureau of Public Procurement, the public opening of bids has become part of the Corporation’s tradition aimed at promoting transparency.
Bameke said: “The essence of this public bid opening is to ensure that the Corporation complies strictly with the provisions of the Bureau of Public Procurement Act (BPP). All the bids will be opened in the presence of everybody to ensure that all entries are properly captured in line with the transparency principle of the NNPC.”
Shedding more light on the process, the Group General Manager, Supply Chain Management, Shehu Liman, informed that the public opening bids measure was aimed at providing a level playing field for all bidding companies.
“The idea is to select broking and insurance companies that are credible and capable with track records of performance. What this means is that we are going to eliminate all those transactions that are not necessary,” Liman stated.
The breakdown of bidders showed that 245 brokers tendered for oil assets, 251 brokers tendered for non-oil assets, while 37 insurance companies tendered for oil assets and 44 tendered for non-oil assets.
Representatives of the companies which tendered bids for the NNPC insurance renewal programme, in whose presence the bids were opened, applauded the Corporation for sustaining the culture of transparency and accountability through the exercise.
The bid opening event had in attendance officials of the Bureau of Public Procurement, Nigerian Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative, Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board and National Insurance Commission as well as members of the civil society who served as independent assessors.
