Senior government officials can play a pivotal role in achieving value for money by removing procedural bottlenecks and ensuring right price and right quality in public procurement.

To do this they need to be equipped with proper skills and knowledge in dealing with various aspects of public procurement as it is an integral part of governance and public sector performance. Compliance with provisions of law is inescapable for achieving value for money and higher growth trajectory.

Speakers expressed such views at a workshop titled, “How Senior Government Officials Can Support Achieving Value for Money Outcomes in Procurement”

The World Bank and The Central Procurement Technical Unit (CPTU) jointly organized the workshop at Radisson Blu Dhaka Water Garden on 19 February, 2020.   

Honorable Planning Minister M A Mannan, MP, was present in the workshop as the chief guest. Abul Mansur Md. Faizullah, ndc, Secretary, Implementation Monitoring and Evaluation Division (IMED), and Ms. Mercy Miyang Tembon, Country Director for Bangladesh & Bhutan, World Bank spoke at the workshop as special guests.

Richard Olowo, Lead Procurement Specialist, World Bank made welcome address and Sunil K. Bhattacharya, Consultant, World Bank, made the keynote presentation and conducted the question-answer session on the occasion.

Shish Haider Chowdhury, Director (Coordination and Training), CPTU, IMED chaired the programme.

The Planning Minister urged all government officials, especially those engaged in public procurement, for discharging their role sincerely by maintaining transparency and accountability.

Public procurement means spending money collected from the public and for this all concerned should be sincere to ensure better use of people’s money from their patriotic feelings in order to boost economic growth, he mentioned.

“All eyes are on us. People want to know how effectively public money is spent. So we need to work as per the law and also be guided by patriotism and our conscience,” he observed.

Procurement should the in right time in right quality and quantity and if so the project implementation will perform well, he said.

The Secretary said the budget is up, ADP is up and with this every year the value of public procurement is also going up.

Public procurement is very significant in Bangladesh as the government spends 45 per cent of the national budget on it. About 75 per cent of ADP which is nearly 16 billion US dollars is spent annually on public procurement.

The Secretary identified two factors as stumbling blocks in project implementation. One is land acquisition and the other is procurement. He put emphasis on maintaining DPP timeframe, tender validity etc.

The World Bank Country Director observed that Bangladesh needed to continue implementation reforms in its procurement. Appreciating e-GP she said WB is proud to be a partner in the process of procurement reform. She stressed the need for commitment from the senior government officials. World Bank lays emphasis on capacity development in Bangladesh’s procurement system, she mentioned. 

As a result of reforms, e-GP has increased efficiency, transparency and competition leading to an annual savings of 150 million US dollars, an amount enough to build 1500 km of rural roads or 3000 primary schools in Bangladesh, she pointed out.

Participants raised various points about Sunil’s presentation. These include advance procurement which appears important in the country context to maintain timeliness. Changing ToR after finalization of DPP is difficult, Sunil said. But one participant said it is possible provided it is later included in DPP corrections. The issues of 10 per cent plus minus, front loading, milestone-based LD, process and knowledge-based procurement, delay in concurrence by development partners, problems in co-financing, resorting to courts and lack of procurement lawyers, non-price attributes came up for discussions in the open floor session. Sunil replied to all such queries. Md. Faruque Hossain, former DG CPTU, who was on the dais at that time also responded to some aspects and made observations on the subject of the workshop. 

Participants mentioned that optimum use of public investment and timely and quality service delivery depend on how well public procurement system functions.

Recognizing the importance of public procurement, the government of Bangladesh has been implementing systemic reforms, it was told mentioning these reforms include e-GP that has helped improve delivery of public services.