Official sources told BSS that lack of expertise and training on the PPR by concerned officials creates major hindrance in the full implementation of ADP in the past years.
They said the ADP, the biggest development programme for government for every fiscal, faces major setbacks because of dilly-dally system of procurement, a necessity which is often blamed for less than targeted implementation of ADP every year.
Poor implementation of ADP year after year has long been a thorn in the bone for successive governments. The present government has laid utmost importance on speedy implementation of ADP to foster economic growth and it is likely to bring some amendments to provisions of the PPR for quick implementation of the ADP and better utilization of public funds.
The Local Government Engineering Department (LGED), Roads and Highways Department (RHD), Bangladesh Water Development Board (BWDB) and Rural Electrification Board (REB) are considered four target agencies under the reform project.
The 10,000 government officials are set be trained in next three years across the where about 3,240 officials will be trained under three-week courses, while 6,000 others will be given short trainings to make them capable of reducing time length in procuring goods and services from vendors under ADP Kazi Jahangir Alam, director of Central Procurement Technical Unit (CTPU) told BSS correspondent Saiful Islam Shameem.
Plans are also underway to enhance the capacity and skills of private bidders, civil society and media to make the public procurement well functioning, he added.
The annual turnover for public procurement of goods and services is over Taka 21,000 crore and it accounts for more than 70 per cent of the development expenditures under the ADP, said a planning ministry source.
Director General of CPTU Amulya Kumar Debnath said the status of timely execution of ADP would improve a lot after the officials, bidders and others concerned were involved in the process of public procurement and well equipped with the knowledge of necessary laws, rules and procedures.
According to statistics, the ADP had never witnessed a full implementation in the last 18 years. Even in the original ADP in 2000-01 was Tk 17,500 crore and it was increased to Taka 18,200 crore. Yet the ADP lacked by 11 percent in terms of full implementation.
Before 2003, there was no uniform guideline, law or rule for public procurement in the country. Due to absence of any legal or institutional framework and uniform standard, projects suffered from delay in implementation. Procurement also suffered from alleged malpractices and waste of public funds.
The Public Procurement Regulation (PPR) was declared in 2003. Based on experiences of its application the Public Procurement Act (PPA) was framed and passed in Parliament in 2006.
Subsequently, it was enacted as a law. Under the PPA-2006, the Public Procurement Rules (PPR) 2008 was framed.
The PPR has been the operating document for public procurement since January 31 of 2008 when both the PPA and the PPR came into effect.
Debnath said they have already trained 1,800 officials public procurement under CPTU, established in 2002 as a permanent unit under the Implementation, Monitoring and Evaluation Division (IMED) of Planning ministry.
He said four components are being looked after PPR project - 2 and these include policy reform, strengthening procurement management, introducing e-governance in procurement (e-GP) and behavioral change communication.
The monitoring and evaluation of public procurement-both online and offline-is going to be started soon and tenders up to Taka one crore and above will be published in CPTU website for monitoring.
The CPTU DG said, "We have initiated the process of introducing the e-GP so that any physical obstruction to submission of tenders is removed and the entire procurement cycle goes online to fulfill the vision of the present government for a Digital Bangladesh by 2021."
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Autor(en)/Author(s): BSS
Quelle/Source: The New Nation, 27.07.2009
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