World Bank to help expand e-procurement

The World Bank yesterday agreed to provide a concessional loan of $34.5 million to prop up the country's electronic procurement infrastructure in a bid to establish greater transparency.
A deal was inked by WB Country Director Johannes Zutt and Economic Relations Division Secretary Md Abul Kalam Azad at the Planning Commission headquarters in Dhaka.
Under the deal, the WB will provide the money to enhance the use of electronic procurement at Roads and Highways Department, Local Government Engineering Department, Rural Electrification Board and Bangladesh Water Development Board.
These four agencies usually spend a major portion of public money and invite bids to complete projects under the government's annual development programme.
These agencies will have to make 10,000 procurements using the electronic procurement system in the next three years, according to the agreement.
Also, the project aims to scale up e-procurement activities in 20 more government agencies, said a statement from the ERD.
Zutt said e-procurement makes public contracts more transparent, secure and competitive, helps reduce inappropriate bidding practices and ensures efficient use of taxpayers' resources.
"We have a simple objective here -- what we want to do is help Bangladeshi taxpayers get value of their money," he said.
He also said the country has already made some progress in its procurement system.
In 2012, around 65 percent of the small contracts were awarded within initial bid validity period, when it was only 10 percent in 2007. In addition, six out of 10 tenders are published on the websites of the government agencies.
All the invitations are now published in newspapers, which was 70 percent in 2005, the statement said.
ERD Secretary Azad said there were incidences of manipulation of bidding processes in the past.
“These were very rampant. The practices came down after the introduction of the public procurement act," he said, adding that the anti-corruption commission act, right to information act and money-laundering prevention act also helped.
With the e-tendering process, more transparency will be established. "This will go a long way in eradicating corruption in any bidding process."
Since the launch of the e-tendering process in 2011, 350 government procuring entities have been registered with the system, along with 1,000 tenders or contractors, according to Central Procurement Technical Unit.
Some 450 tenders have already been processed through the system. Of those, 250 have been awarded and the rest are underway.