The Sustainable Procurements, Environmental and Social Standards Enhancement Projects (SPESSE, Centre of Excellence ) of Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University (ATBU), Bauchi has so far certified a total of 1500 pioneer participants on Procurement, Social and Environmental standard.
The graduation Ceremony was held at the SPESSCE Complex at Gubi Campus of the University on Monday with some of the participants physically present.
The Centre Lead, Professor Ibrahim Hassan Garba while speaking at the certification of some of the students, said that the courses were put in place to fill the notable gap in the various areas of specialisation of the courses.
Professor Hassan Garba Ibrahim took grandaunts round the facilities at the Centre, disclosing that Three sets –from five to seven- were certified saying, “Throughout out the programme we have certified 1500 participants for part A.”
He further explained that the training was a capacity programme to address skill gaps in procurement standards, the practice of environmental standard and application of social standards.
According to him, the Centre’s training span across five different tracks explaining that, “Tracks A are the short Executive Courses that we run within five days and we certify a participants.”
Ibrahim Garba added that, “Track B is the Advanced Certificate run for a minimum of 80 hours or three to four weeks and Track. We have track D which is Post Graduate Diploma in the three standards and Track E is two tiers of Master’s Degree- Professional Masters and the Academic Masters.”
The Centre Lead also explained that the training being offered by the Centre would help in understanding the Procurement Law for effective practice.
“There is a gap is the Procurement Officers knows the law and the Chief Executive who would be held accountable does not know,” he stated.
He stressed that, “By this programme, we train the procurement Officers while we also organize Master Class for the Chief Executives so they can also be aware of the Procurement Law and that way both the Officer and the Chief Accounting Officer are on the same level in terms of knowledge and application of the Procurement Law.”
He then said that all the courses at the Centre are run based on the License given by the National University Commission (NUC) after thorough investigation of facilities.
In his remarks, the Vice Chancellor of the University, Professor Muhammad Abdulazeez congratulated the graduands and urged them to be good ambassadors of the Centre and the University.
“You will be our advocates out there and we believe with you as our Ambasadors we will see a lot of patronage not only in the social standards but also in the Procurement Standards as well as environmental standards,” he said.
The VC stressed that, “ATBU is your home and you are welcome anytime and when you want consultancy you don’t need to go outside.”
He added that, “Our centre is equipped to carry out Environmental and Social Impact Assessment of any magnitude. We are willing and we are ready because we have the capacity. We have the state of the art facilities to do that.”
Professor I. Chindo, Deputy Centre Leader in Charge of Enviromental Standards urged the graduands to take advantage of the various courses to make positive impact in their respective offices.
The Sustainable Procurement, Environmental and Social Standards Enhancement Project (SPESSE) is a project of the Federal Government of Nigeria (FGN) with assistance from the World Bank.
The Project development objectives is to develöp sustainable capacity in managing procurement, environment and social safeguards in the public sector.
The cornerstone of SPESSE implementation is the creation of Centres of Excellence (CE) in Nigerian Universifies
to deliver a series of capacity building tracks in a sustainable manner in procurement, environmental and social
standards.
This capacity development project is strategically and operationally planned in an aligned and coordinated manner across all tiers of government and involves all stakeholders (National and Sub-National Government, Development Partners, NGOs, Private Sector, etc.)
