The Federal Government has threatened sanctions against accounting officers of government-owned agencies and corporations who award inflated contracts or bypass procurement regulations, as it intensifies efforts to curb waste and corruption in public spending.
The Secretary to the Government of the Federation, George Akume, gave the warning in a circular directing all federal institutions that spend public funds to comply strictly with the Public Procurement Act, 2007.
The directive covers government-owned enterprises, corporations, councils, authorities and commissions, extending procurement compliance requirements beyond conventional ministries, departments and agencies.
Akume expressed concern that several government-owned enterprises and corporations continued to award contracts without complying with the procurement law, despite its amendment by the Finance Act, 2020.
He identified inflated contract sums, restricted competition, exclusive arrangements for contractors and inadequate regulatory oversight as some of the consequences of the violations.
“This non-compliance is unacceptable and will no longer be tolerated,” the SGF declared.
According to the circular, some institutions have continued to award contracts above established price benchmarks, create captive markets for exclusive contractors and depart significantly from approved procurement guidelines.
Akume directed the heads of the affected institutions, who also serve as accounting officers, to liaise with the Bureau of Public Procurement for guidance on compliance.
He warned that any accounting officer who continued to award contracts outside the provisions of the Act would be sanctioned.
The circular stated, “Any Accounting Officer who contravenes this directive and continues to award contracts without recourse to the provisions of the Public Procurement Act, 2007, shall be sanctioned accordingly.”
The SGF also ordered that the circular be circulated to all accounting officers for immediate and strict implementation.
Among those copied were the Chief of Staff to the President, Deputy Chief of Staff, Principal Secretary to the President, Head of the Civil Service of the Federation, ministers and ministers of state.
Others included the National Security Adviser, Economic Adviser to the President, special advisers, senior special assistants, Chief of Defence Staff, service chiefs, Inspector-General of Police and Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria.
The chairmen of the Federal Civil Service Commission, Police Service Commission, Code of Conduct Bureau, Code of Conduct Tribunal, Federal Character Commission, Revenue Mobilisation, Allocation and Fiscal Commission, Federal Inland Revenue Service and Independent National Electoral Commission also received the directive.
Other recipients included the chairmen of the National Population Commission, Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission, Economic and Financial Crimes Commission and National Drug Law Enforcement Agency.
Permanent secretaries, heads of extra-ministerial departments, the Clerk of the National Assembly, Chief Registrar of the Supreme Court, Accountant-General of the Federation, Auditor-General for the Federation and chief executives of government agencies and parastatals were also listed.
The Public Procurement Act established the BPP as the regulatory authority responsible for monitoring public procurement, setting standards and ensuring transparency, accountability and competition in the award of government contracts.
Section 15 of the Act, as amended by the Finance Act, 2020, extended its application to federal government-owned enterprises, corporations, councils, authorities and commissions that utilise public funds.
Section 20 also places responsibility for procurement compliance on accounting officers, including permanent secretaries and heads of government agencies and corporations. They are required to supervise procurement processes and ensure that their institutions operate within the law.
The latest directive follows a series of measures introduced by the Federal Government to prevent contract inflation and strengthen oversight of public spending.
In October 2025, the Federal Executive Council directed strict enforcement of the procurement law across federal institutions following its meeting of August 13, 2025.
A circular issued by Akume subsequently directed government-owned companies, the National Assembly, the Judiciary, defence and security agencies and the CBN to comply with procurement regulations when spending public funds.
In October 2026, the government also introduced a mandatory 14-calendar-day standstill period between the announcement of an intended contract award and the finalisation of procurement contracts.
The measure is designed to give unsuccessful bidders time to seek clarification, request debriefing or lodge complaints before contracts are concluded.
The government has also strengthened penalties against contractors involved in fraud, corruption, falsification of documents and persistent failure to execute public contracts.
Under the National Guideline on Debarment of Contractors, Consultants and Service Providers, offending contractors may be barred from participating in federal procurement for between three and five years.
In another measure, the BPP in May 2026 barred ministries, departments and agencies from processing upward revisions of contract sums without first obtaining the bureau's certification.
The bureau also introduced guidelines centralising the review and approval of contract variations and modifications to project scopes, irrespective of the contract value.
The reforms replaced the 2013 framework, which required presidential approval only for variations exceeding 15 per cent of the initial contract sum or N1bn.
Under the revised guidelines, all requests for variation orders, fluctuation claims and changes to project scopes must be submitted to the BPP for review and certification before being forwarded to the relevant approving authority.
The bureau warned that variations processed without its certification could attract sanctions, including the suspension of responsible public officers and possible debarment of contractors.
The BPP Director-General, Adebowale Adedokun, said the measures were designed to prevent contractors and public institutions from exploiting contract variations to inflate project costs.
“Variations must not become a backdoor for cost inflation and scope creep,” he said, stressing that every adjustment to a public contract must be necessary, justified and deliver value for money.
In August 2026, Adedokun disclosed that the Federal Government had saved about N1.4tn in 18 months through the bureau's price intelligence and benchmarking initiatives.
He made the disclosure during a media interview on the sidelines of a procurement capacity-building workshop for senior management and executive staff of the Nigeria Deposit Insurance Corporation in Lagos.
According to him, the introduction of price intelligence had enabled the bureau to scrutinise project estimates submitted by government institutions and compare them with established pricing standards before granting procurement approvals.
He said the initiative had also compelled contractors to moderate their bids because of the risk of having excessive quotations rejected.
“At the advent of the procurement reforms that we embarked on about two years ago, one of the things that we introduced was price intelligence and benchmarking. That had not been there before,” Adedokun said.
He explained that the bureau employed professionals trained to assess project costs against fair pricing standards internationally.
“So, if a government agency prices a project and it comes to the BPP, we benchmark it. Through benchmarking, we can arrive at what we consider a fair price for that project,” he added.
The bureau had earlier disclosed that its procurement reviews saved the Federal Government more than N303bn, $304.9m and €1.74m through the detection of inflated contract costs between January and September 2025.
The figures, based on the bureau's assessment of contracts reviewed, highlight the potential savings from tighter scrutiny of public procurement.
The latest directive reinforces the government's efforts to make procurement compliance mandatory across all publicly funded institutions, with accounting officers facing direct responsibility for violations and the BPP expected to strengthen its oversight of contract awards.
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