Benin/The Benin ARMP Shedding More Light on the Public Procurement Code

During the workshop held on August 5 and 6, 2021 at INFOSEC in Cotonou and at CHANT D’OISEAU, the Public Procurement Regulatory Authority (PPRA) of Benin launched officially the first phase of the national awareness and information campaign for public procurement actors on the law 2020-26 of September 29, 2020, which is related to the public procurement code and its application decrees in the Republic of Benin. The main reason was to equip those actors of the national chain of public procurement and enable them to be more effective in their work.

At the opening of the campaign, Mr. Séraphin AGBAHOUNGBATA, the President of the Benin PPRA stated straight forward the objective of the campaign, which was to shed more light to the understanding of the actors of the national public procurement system as far as the changes in the public procurement code, the scope of its application and general principles are concerned in the law n°2020-26 of September 29, 2020. Other points were also covered, namely the changes in the institutional framework, the procurement procedures and techniques but also the new organization put into place for dispute management. New ICT innovations were introduced and the campaign covered them too for more understanding plus some insight on sustainable development.

The said campaign is in the frame of the project PAGIPG financed by the World Bank, which is a project in support of the management of public procurement investments and governance.

For Mr. Alphonse AKPAMOLI, the Coordinator of PAGIPG, that campaign that mobilized all the actors of the public procurement chain was an advantage to strengthen them vis-à-vis the provisions of the new public procurement code and offer them the entire legal arsenal for them to meet all the demands and ambition of the government regarding public procurement. “If legal texts are well disseminated, audits will reveal little irregularities”, said Mr. Alphonse AKPAMOLI.

He seized the opportunity to praise the numerous efforts that Benin government is making for more transparency in the public procurement process. To end up with, he announced all the initiatives in process by the government for the digitalization of public procurement and self-assessment of the public procurement system.

In other good news, the campaign would continue from August 10 to August 14, 2021 in all the departmental capitals for communes and decentralized structures of the State.