Milne Bay is the second province in the Southern Region to successfully establish its provincial procurement committee of the National Procurement Commission.
Their swearing-in ceremony was held today (21st September).
Their swearing in was also followed by Samarai-Murua District Procurement Committee’s as the second district in the Southern Region after the North Fly District.
Chief executive officer of the National Procurement Commission (NPC), Simon Bole, said the procurement process is the first step towards service delivery and provinces and districts must make it their immediate priority to get the committee fully established.
“For us at NPC, our message is very clear to all the provinces and districts and government agencies; you cannot deliver services to the people without doing procurement because there is no other way.
“We have been issuing circular instruction and media statements advising Governors, Open MPs and the respective Provincial Administrators and CEOs of District Development Authorities to make it their immediate priority to establish the procurement committees.
“Some have responded quickly and we also facilitated the process quickly for them, like the Namatanai District, Middle Fly, Western Highlands, Central, Okapa, Finschhafen, Koroba Lake-Kopiago and now Milne Bay and Samarai-Murua,” he said.
“These committees can immediately convene board meetings after their swearing-in and commence tender and procurement processes in their respective districts and provinces to deliver services to people.”
Samarai-Murua MP, Isi Henry Leonard, thanked the NPC for successfully facilitating the establishment of their district procurement committee members.
“This has been our bottleneck that has delayed most of our projects and programs in the district and with their establishment now, the board will immediately convene board meetings after we return to the district to commence tender process for our delayed projects,” he said.
“One of our immediate priority now would be to acquire a police boat to fight sea piracy, amongst other key impact projects for the district.”
The MP said an office space and two staff from the district would be assigned to take care of the district procurement committee in the interim until the NPC sends its permanent staff under its structure.
(Members of the Milne Bay Provincial Procurement Committee taking their oath in front of Magistrate Wialo Sakatao during their swearing today at the NPC head office in Port Moresby)