The announcement was made, fittingly, on the sidelines of the ‘Corruption-free Asia: A Long-Term Vision’ conference which concluded at the Sheraton Doha. Yousef Al Naama, ictQATAR's i-Gov Programme Manager, said: "This is part of a nationwide effort to make government work better for those who live and work in Qatar."
When the rollout of the e-tendering service is completed, companies will be able to access private and public government tenders. At the outset, the services for private government tenders will be launched next month as a pilot programme in ictQATAR and the SAB, where registering and bidding will be done by invitation.
The new e-service will be accessible through ‘Hukoomi’, the government's portal, on www.gov.qa. Over the next year, ictQATAR will be expanding the services to additional government agencies as well as make public government tenders available on the portal.
The project is being carried out in collaboration with Mannai and Oracle, the business partners involved in developing the solution.
At the launch stage, companies must first be invited to register for the private tenders in order to participate. After being invited to bid for a private tender, companies can then register on ‘Hukoomi’.
Once invited and registered, firms can show their interest to bid, download tender documents, upload proposals and take part in online discussions with buyers for clarifications.
In addition, evaluation and scoring of proposals is done within the concerned government agency through an online collaborative scoring process. Once the winning bid has been selected, companies will receive automatic notifications online.
Al Naama said: "The e-tendering service will make it easier for companies to do business with the Qatari government. These services will also make government processes more efficient and reduce costs."
Badreya Khinji, SAB's Head of Internal Control Office, said: "We anticipate this new service will encourage more companies to do business with the Qatari government and increase the fairness in the tendering process."
Ali Ahmed Al Kuwari, ictQATAR Finance Director, said the process will be reliable and will save time for both the government and vendors.
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Quelle/Source: The Peninsula On-line, 12.06.2008
