KEY POINTS

• BPP DG Adebowale Adedokun barred MDAs from upward contract revisions without first obtaining a Bureau Certificate of No Objection.
• New guidelines centralize all contract variation reviews, replacing a 2013 framework that only required Presidential approval for variations above 15 percent or N1 billion.
• Variations of N10 billion and above now need Federal Executive Council approval, with MDAs required to publish all approved variations within 30 days.

Adebowale Adedokun’s Bureau of Public Procurement on Sunday barred Federal Ministries, Departments and Agencies from processing upward revisions of contract sums without first obtaining a Bureau certificate, in a move that centralizes every contract variation under BPP authority.

The new guidelines, issued under Sections 5(a) and (o) of the Public Procurement Act 2007, take immediate effect and apply to all ongoing projects regardless of when the original contract started. The BPP said the reform targets one of the most persistent channels for cost inflation and corruption in Nigerian public procurement.

Now every request for a variation order, fluctuation claim or scope modification, regardless of size, must reach the BPP before any approving authority can sign off. The Bureau Certificate of No Objection, valid for six months, becomes a mandatory precondition for further action.

Tougher than 2013

Specifically, the framework replaces a 2013 regime that required Presidential approval only when variations exceeded 15 percent of the contract sum or N1 billion, a threshold that contractors and MDAs routinely worked around.

Indeed, Adedokun said the new rules close that loophole. “Variations must not become a backdoor for cost inflation and scope creep,” he said, promising the BPP will apply the rules rigorously and fairly across all MDAs.

Moreover, the guidelines draw a sharp line between permissible and impermissible grounds for variation. Unforeseen site conditions, material errors in design, statutory changes after contract execution, significant price escalation from macroeconomic shocks or force majeure and value engineering improvements qualify. Inadequate planning, avoidable design flaws and new components added to existing contracts will not.

Penalties bite both ways on contract variation crackdown

Furthermore, additions outside the original contract scope must run as fresh contracts, blocking the practice of using variations to dress new projects in old paperwork. Contractors who deliberately slow projects to inflate fluctuation claims will lose those claims and face debarment if the claims prove bogus or overstated.

Additionally, variations processed without a Certificate of No Objection will attract sanctions under the Public Procurement Act 2007, including suspension of responsible officers and debarment of contractors.

The guidelines also restructure approving authority thresholds. Works variations of N10 billion and above now require Federal Executive Council approval. Variations between N5 billion and N10 billion go to the Ministerial Tenders Board, those between N75 million and N5 billion sit with the Parastatal Tenders Board, and anything below N75 million for works or N50 million for goods and services can clear at the Accounting Officer level.

Final designs only

Meanwhile, the guidelines require MDAs to use approved final designs for all procurements from the outset, attacking what the BPP describes as the entrenched practice of starting projects on preliminary or flawed engineering documents that later generate avoidable variations.

However, the disclosure regime may bite hardest. Every MDA must publish details of every approved variation, including contractor name, original sum, augmentation amount, revised sum and grounds for the increase, on its website and the BPP portal within 30 days of Tenders Board approval.

Today, the Bureau will also send periodic council notes to the Federal Executive Council on reviewed and approved variations across government, giving the cabinet a continuous audit trail rather than reactive briefings.

Together, the certificate requirement, the rejected grounds, the disclosure rule and the tighter thresholds frame the BPP’s most aggressive procurement reform in over a decade. Whether the agency can enforce the framework against politically connected contractors and well-resourced MDAs will determine how much of the cost inflation actually exits Nigeria’s project pipeline. Yet for now, Adedokun has put every contract variation in the federal government’s books on notice.