The strategy will give to life to an electronic procurement system which will go a long way in eradicating corruption associated with procurement and bidding.
The e-Procurement system shall be a web-based system that encompasses the total procurement lifecycle, all procurement modalities, and record all procurement activities.
The purpose of this system is to maintain efficient, complete and up-to-date public procurement information for all public agencies of Uganda.
It will also provide tender opportunities to all potential national and international bidders.
The e-Procurement system will therefore provide Procuring and Disposal Entities (PDEs), bidders and other relevant stakeholders like the Solicitor General, Auditor General, Banks and their branches, e-Payment service providers, and other stakeholders with secure access to an integrated range of procurement systems and services.
State Minister for Finance Matia Kasaija while launching the strategy said government intends to adopt an e-Government Procurement (e-GP) system to increase efficiency and transparency, create confidence in procurement and ultimately result in value for money.
“E-Government procurement is also expected to increase transparency in public procurement. As you are aware lack of transparency breeds corruption, unfairness, lack of competition and ultimately the government does not achieve value for money as a result of paying more for a service that could be delivered at a cheaper price,” the minister stated.
“As the Ministry of Finance, we expect that with the e-government procurement, the government will be more efficient, make savings in procurement, build bidder confidence, and achieve value for money. In addition the Government will be able to implement its programmes at the right time, at the right price and in accordance with the approved specifications,” he added.
The general public will get access to all the public information including annual procurement plans, invitation to bids, best evaluated bids, contract award details, contract completion reports, suspension lists, procurement performance statistical and analytical reports, and other information of public interests, published by Public Procurement and Disposal of Assets Authority (PPDA) and PDEs.
Kasaija said the ministry shall provide the necessary resources required to procure the system, equip public servants with the necessary knowledge and skills to use ICT tools and systems effectively and enforce the implementation of the system.
The e-GP system shall be integrated/interfaced with other National systems such as the, e-ID, Business registration and trade, e-Tax and
VAT System, e-catalogue. It will be inter-operable with existing and future systems in compliance with the Interoperability Framework issued by NITA. To facilitate interoperability with other legacy systems, an e-Government Interoperability Framework (e-GIF) will be adopted.
The Minister urged that wide consultations with all stakeholders should be undertaken in order to ensure that there is user buy- in by all stakeholders before the actual implementation of the system.
“As you are aware most of our service providers are small and medium scale enterprises. Some of these SMEs may not be able to embrace e-procurement in the short term and may initially be disadvantaged.
There is therefore need to implement programmes aimed at preparing them for e-government.” He said. The e-Procurement system shall support and provide a facility for electronically signing of all the documents, forms and communications or other alternative methods in the absence of PKI based digital signature for the authentication and encryption. The system shall be implemented in accordance with the provision of the National Information Security Framework of Uganda.
The executive director of Public Procurement and Disposal of Public Assets Authority (PPDA) Cornelia Kakooza sabiti in an interview said the Authority is ensuring that there is enough human resource and capability to actually have governance structures. With the coming of the e-system, Sabiiti says some manual levels will be collapsed while some documentation in the procurement process will be merged.
“We will really want the process to flow and be very efficient, because you cannot duplicate the same manual system electronically, there have to be some changes along the way, we are also consulting with public practitioners in the public procurement as to the best way we can reengineer the system electronically,” Sabiiti said.
Asked what the cost of the system will be, Sabiiti said the system’s budget will be arrived at after factoring in costs of technical and functional requirements.
“That’s when we shall have the final budget for the whole solution but it will not be a large budget because we already have existing structure for example Integrated Financial Management Information
System (IFMIS) and modules for payments. We are not going to duplicate existing systems. We are going to cost what modules are needed so that we actually ensure that the system is cost effective.” She explained.
Simon Onyango the E-procurement Project Manager said the consultants PricewaterCoopers are during the required necessities and within 18 month from now the system will be in be piloted across all agencies of government contributing to poverty alleviation, economic growth, and the reduction of rural unemployment.
The efforts are made towards achieving the goal of becoming a middle-income country by the year 2020.
The mining sector of Rwanda has been growing at 46% per annum since 2008. The country projects the mining and quarrying contribution to normal GDP to be at 5.27% by 2017/2018 with an increase in certified mines with efficient water and waste management systems from 25% in 2013/14 to 100% in 2017/18.
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Autor(en)/Author(s): Baz Waiswa
Quelle/Source: East African Business Week, 21.12.2014
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