"We will establish the e-governance in the procurement system to ensure transparency and accountability for using the public money," he said while speaking as the chief guest at the concluding session of a three-day international workshop at a city hotel.
The Asia regional workshop on 'Implementing Procurement Reforms and improving procurement performance' was organized by the Planning Commission with the support of World Bank, Asian Development Bank (ADB), UK's Department for International Development (DFID) and Australian AusAid.
IMED Secretary Sheikh AK Motahar Hossain chaired the concluding session of the workshop.
The special assistant said harmonisation is needed among the development partners as various development partners have various procurement policies, which was one of the major causes of delaying the implementation of government projects.
"I personally faced such kind of problems in handling various procurement policies," he said adding, "reform is also needed in the donor's procurement policies side by side with the government's initiatives."
Dr Tamim said reforms in the public procurement system started from 2003 by formulating a regulation. After that, in 2006, a public procurement Act was passed and to implement the Act properly, the present government has enacted a public procurement Rules-2008, he added.
Dr Tamim hoped the public procurement law and rules would bring accountability and transparency in the whole procurement process including tender, project approval, work execution and duties of civil servants.
He said training and updating knowledge are very important for proper understanding of different procurement laws and policies to bring efficiency in the entire process.
Later, Motahar told BSS that they have already appointed an international and a local procurement experts under the central procurement technical unit (CPTU) to set up the e-procurement system.
"We could be able to start the e-procurement system by July next year as a pilot basis and within two to three years it could be run completely," he said.
After setting up the e-procurement system, anyone could get information from web site even from his/her home. It would stop the interaction between tender seekers and government officials would reduce the corruption as well as establish transparency in the procurement system.
Nearly 100 participants from host Bangladesh and 16 other countries participated in seven working sessions of the workshop.
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Autor(en)/Author(s): BSS
Quelle/Source: The New Nation, 26.06.2008
