By Loness Gwazanga

Blantyre, August 3, Mana: Public Procurement and Disposal of Assets (PPDA) Wednesday donated books worth K7 million to Malawi University of Business and Applied Sciences (MUBAS) in order to help procurement students acquire vast knowledge.

PPDA Director General, Dr Edington Chilapondwa said currently, public procurement was a challenge and therefore it was important to instill the basics at a youthful stage for sanity to prevail in the sector.

"Many procurement officers do not have the basics and this challenge is giving a lot of problems in the country's public procurement sector. This is why we want to encourage public universities such as MUBAS to train the students right away from the first year on what public procurement is all about," he explained.

Chilapondwa said this was the only way Malawi could solve public mis-procurement that most government departments are encountering due to lack of experts in the field, which was somehow fueling corruption.

MUBAS Vice Chancellor, Nancy Chitera described the donation as timely since the university was planning to introducing certificate, diploma and doctoral level degrees to meet the current demand.

“We are in final stages and hence, need for more books to meet the demand. Since 2008 we have been offering procurement programme but at mature entry only. So now we have just finished the review and will start having generic students.

“We will be having more students and demand for books will be huge. Therefore, these books will enable us produce fully baked graduates that will make a difference," she added.