Worried by limited access to public procurement data in Nigeria, Accountability Lab Nigeria has developed an Artificial Intelligence (AI)-integrated platform to simplify public procurement data in Edo, Ekiti, and Plateau states.
   
The Labs Storytelling Development Officer, Blessing Anolaba, who made this disclosure yesterday in Abuja, regretted that challenges such as lack of unique identifiers, duplicated records, inconsistencies in contract dates, and incomplete data fields hinder citizens’ ability to monitor procurement processes effectively.
    
According to Anolaba, unpublished procurement information leaves citizens in the dark about how decisions are made and deprives them of the chance to track the progress of projects.
   
“This persistent lack of accountability in public procurement remains a critical challenge despite the adoption of frameworks such as the Public Procurement Act 2007, and efforts like the World Bank’s State Fiscal Transparency, Accountability, and Sustainability (SFTAS) programme, inefficiencies, mismanagement, and fraud persist.

She said: “These systemic issues also hinder competitive and fair business practices, limit oversight, and obstruct the government’s ability to deliver an improved healthcare supply chain.
    
“As part of our strategic approach to making public procurement data easily accessible, up-to-date, and understandable to build trust, support citizens, and improve their active participation in public procurement processes through open contracting platforms, we recently developed a user-friendly AI-integrated platform in Edo, Ekiti, and Plateau states.”
    
Anolaba pointed out that they have designed the tool to automatically extract information from scanned procurement data uploaded to the platform, transforming it into structured data with minimal effort.