140 AN ANALYSIS OF COMPLIANCE TO THE PUBLIC PROCUREMENT ACT ADVERTISEMENT PROCESS BY THE FEDERAL MINISTRY OF EDUCATION By NJOKU, Hyacinth Tochukwu Department of Public Administration, Faculty of Administration, Nasarawa State University, Keffi. & ABDULLAHI Mohammed PhD Department of Public Administration, Faculty of Administration, Nasarawa State University, Keffi. & AHMED Abubakar Audi PhD Department of Public Administration, Faculty of Administration, Nasarawa State University, Keffi. Abstract This study seeks to analysis the challenges confronting compliance to advertisement of bid process as stipulated in the Public Procurement Act, 2007 by the Federal Ministry of Education. An analysis of the collected data revealed that lack of appropriated fund for advert placement; pervasive ‘culture of secrecy’ in the civil service; resistance to change by procurement personnel; interference by elected or appointed political office holders (Who are not Authorized Officials); delays in passing the budget and the need to quickly dispense the projects; delays in securing ‘No objection’ from the BPP; corruption; lack of dedicated staff that handle website administration; and non-provision or approval of website maintenance cost were the significant factors that possess challenge to Federal Ministry of Education compliance with the Public Procurement Act, 2007 guidelines on advertisement of bids process. It recommended that the Federal Civil Service Commission and the Office of the Head of Civil Service of the Federation should look into recruiting website design and administrative specialist and other computer and web-allied personnel like database management, and graphic design specialist for the Ministry, among others. Keywords: Advertisement, Solicitation of Bids, Public Procurement Act. Introduction The introduction of public procurement reforms in Nigeria was facilitated by the findings and recommendations of World Bank Country Procurement Assessment Report (CPAR) for Nigeria in 1999. The report revealed that 60 kobo was being lost to underhand practices out of every one Naira (N1.00) spent by Government and that an average of ten Billion US Dollars ($10b) was being lost annually due to fraudulent practices in the award and execution of public contracts (World Bank, 2000). The report recommends among others, the enactment of a procurement law to underpin the reforms being proposed. In a bid to implement the recommendations led to the setting up of the Budget Monitoring and Price Intelligent Unit (BMPIU), known as ‘Due Process’ in 2001, which is part of the broad government economic reform agenda. Due process implies that governmental activities and business can be carried