By Golam Moin Uddin

DHAKA, Dec 27, 2023 (BSS) - The implementation of Electronic Government
Procurement (e-GP) has been a landmark success of the government for building
"Digital Bangladesh Vision" as tender worth around Taka 792,664 crore were
invited through e-GP up to the middle of December 2023.

The e-GP system started its journey in Bangladesh on June 2, 2011. Prime
Minister Sheikh Hasina had inaugurated the e-GP portal on the day.

Since 2012, the e-GP system witnessed an exponential growth over a decade
with wider adoption of the electronic tendering across the government
procuring entities and private sector tenderers.

The newly-established Bangladesh Public Procurement Authority (BPPA) is the
custodian of the system. The e-GP is practiced by Procuring Entities and the
tenderers.

While talking to BSS, Planning Minister MA Mannan said the BPPA has been
created to strengthen further the operations of the electronic government
procurement. Efforts are on to enhance the coverage of the e-GP to 100
percent, he added.

Talking to this correspondent, BPPA CEO Mohammed Shoheler Rahman Chowdhury
said: "We're not looking at the percentage of e-GP coverage in the country.
We're advancing in a targeted way. We've targeted 32 larger procuring
agencies which consume about 80 per cent of total public procurement of the
country and most of them are now conducting procurement through e-GP system."

There has been a Cabinet decision to implement e-GP in all procuring
entities. "We're also focusing on the health and education sectors to
digitize their procurement," he mentioned.

Recently, the Secretary of Implementation Monitoring and Evaluation Division,
under which CPTU was a unit, issued a demi official letter to all ministries
to implement e-GP in their respective divisions and departments.

"We're also issuing individual letters to the entities, still publishing
offline tender notices in the press, requesting them to invite tenders
through e-GP system instead of the offline medium," noted the first CEO of
the BPPA.

AKM Shamsuddoha, president of Dohatec New Media, an international software
vendor closely associated with e-GP system, said Bangladesh saves $1.1
billion a year from the use of the e-GP system according to the World Bank.
The system has reduced the average procurement processing time from 100 days
to 57 days.

He said the BPPA, formerly CPTU, has trained over 22,000 government officials
and over 15,000 registered tenderers and 1,300 bankers.

"We were honored to be a part of this internationally recognized success by
way of involvement in the development of the system, operation maintenance,
and providing professional training to bring about the required capacity
building in the government personnel," he added.

Up to December 17, 2023, a total of 761,146 tenders were invited through e-GP
involving a total estimated cost of Taka 792,664 crore. The number is growing
day by day. The government earns revenue worth about Taka 400 crore a year
through the e-GP system.

At present about 40 percent of the national budget and 80 percent of the
Annual Development Programme (ADP) are spent on public procurement. Total
annual expenditures on public procurement are worth about US$30 billion a
year.

The reforms implemented in the domain of public procurement have diverse
aspects like capacity development and professionalization, citizen engagement
and awareness, updating of standard tender documents, introduction of
significant features in the e-GP system, adoption of Sustainable Public
Procurement (SPP) Policy and transformation of the Central Procurement
Technical Unit into Bangladesh Public Procurement Authority (BPPA).

On July 5, 2023, the Planning Minister placed the Bangladesh Public
Procurement Authority (BPPA) Bill 2023 in the Jatiya Sangsad (JS).

The government appointed Mohammed Shoheler Rahman Chowdhury as the first
Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the newly-established BPPA on November 28,
2023.

BPPA officials said public procurement is done with public funds and that is
why citizens have rights to know about public procurement. To fulfill the
rights, BPPA has established a Citizen Portal to disclose public procurement
information to citizens.

For further improvement of the overall procurement management and
establishing a sustainable procurement environment in the country, the
government has recently transformed the Central Procurement Technical Unit
(CPTU) of IMED into BPPA.
 
In 2009, the former CPTU started the process of launching electronic
government procurement (e-GP). The e-GP Guidelines were issued in 2011. The
implementation of digitization in public procurement started with the
inauguration of online based e-GP portal (www.eprocure.gov.bd) by the Prime
Minister on June 2, 2011.

This is a landmark reform in public procurement in Bangladesh. The e-GP
system is saving time and cost. It is also generating revenue for the
government.

The e-GP has been recognized as a reliable and dynamic system by procuring
entities and tenderers across the country. It is also beneficial to
environment as the system is reducing the use of paper and travel in
connection with tender submission.
 
Efficiency, competition and transparency in public procurement have
increased, some of which are mentioned below:

Efficiency: The contract award within the stipulated timeframe in 2007 was 10
per cent, which has now increased to 90 percent.

Competition: The average number of participants in each tender in 2007 was 4,
now it has increased to 26 (Open and limited tender method combined).

Transparency: In 2007, the publication rate of tender advertisements was 15
percent. Currently it is 100 percent. Contract award disclosure was 15 per
cent in 2007. Currently it has increased to 100 per cent.

With the slogan "Electronic Tender, Sheikh HasinarUpohar (gift)", the BPPA
continues to work on further expansion, simplification and sustainability of
the e-GP system. Significant progress has been achieved in the implementation
of e-GP from 2011 up to July 2023.

The number of procuring agencies registered in e-GP increased from the
initial 5 in 2011 to 910 in 2016 and to 1447 as of December 17, 2023.

The number of tenderers registered with e-GP on July 17, 2023 was 1,10,856.
This number is increasing day by day.

The number of women tenderers registered with e-GP stood at 3388 on December
17, 2023.

Up to December 17, 2023, a total of 761,146 tenders were invited through e-GP
involving a total estimated cost of Taka 792,664 crore.

The number of banks registered with e-GP is now 52 and with 6,876 branches
across the country they are providing payment services to tenderers.

The average number of participants in each tender increased to 26.07 (LTM and
OTM combined) in December 2023 from only 4 in 2007.

The e-GP system is earning Taka 400-450 crore annually. The total income from
inception to July 31, 2023 was Taka 2137.69 crore. The amount of money has
been deposited in the government treasury.

The BPPA is working to include procurement of services in the e-GP system
shortly.

In 2022, some very important features were added to e-GP system. Such
features are mentioned below:

i) International Competitive Tender (ICT)
ii) Electronic Contract Management System (e-CMS)
iii) e-Audit Module
iv) Automated Challan (A-Challan)
v) Direct Procurement Method International recognition

The e-GP system of Bangladesh has been acclaimed at home and abroad. A good
number of countries and organizations have visited former CPTU between 2009
and 2023 and it is going on.

So far, Ethiopia and Nigeria received training in e-GP from the former CPTU
between 2011 and 2023. Delegations from Gambia, Nepal, Bhutan, Pakistan,
Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Mozambique and Egypt visited former CPTU to learn
about implementation of e-GP. The e-GP system has not stopped even for a day
during the global COVID-19 pandemic.

Mentionable, the BPPA has been connected to South Asian Public Procurement
Association Network (SAPPN) and Global Development Learning Network (GDLN),
an international procurement platform.