A three-member delegation of the National Procurement Commission of Sri Lanka that paid a four-day visit to Dhaka from 20 November to 23 November 2017 appreciated public procurement environment and electronic government procurement system of Bangladesh.

The delegation headed by Dr. Palitha Ekanaiyake, Member, NPC had a series of meetings with Central Procurement Technical Unit of Implementation Monitoring and Evaluation Division, Ministry of Planning, at CPTU Conference Room on November 21-22, 2017. Two other members of the team are M. Vamadevan, Member, NPC and W. A. de Alwis, Director, Procurement Investigation of NPC.

Md Mofizul Islam, Secretary, IMED, chaired the first day meeting. Director General of CPTU and Additional Secretary Md Faruque Hossain made a presentation on the general overview of public procurement reform in Bangladesh while Senior System Analyst Md Mosharraf Hussain presented overview of e-GP. Director (Coordination and Training) Shish Haider Chowdhury, who conducted the meeting, made a presentation on current and future initiatives of CPTU concerning projects. The CPTU is now implementing Digitizing Implementation Monitoring and Public Procurement Project (DIMAPPP) with support from World Bank.

The objective of the visit of Sri Lankan delegation is to gain knowledge and experiences on public procurement reform and e-GP implementation in Bangladesh in order to improve Sri Lankan public procurement system. The CPTU of IMED, Ministry of Planning, is implementing e-GP in the country.

Lauding the comprehensive e-GP system at CPTU, the Sri Lankan team leader said that their Commission had been formed two years back to recast the existing procurement guidelines on public procurement and also to introduce e-GP in their country.

“We are facing challenges in addressing deviation from the guidelines and the government has asked us to formulate a new one to get it passed by our parliament,” said M. Vamadevan, Member, NPC.
“We see that legal framework of your public procurement and e-GP is very comprehensive and the implementation status is much advance,” he added.

The IMED Secretary said, “In all aspects of e-GP implementation, Bangladesh is in a leading position in South Asia and beyond.”

He said through such exchange of visit both the countries will benefit in taking forward the agenda of digitization of public service delivery. He offered the best possible cooperation of his Division to the Sri Lankan delegation in getting their agenda accomplished.

The Sri Lankan team expressed the view that they would be very happy if a team from CPTU visits Sri Lanka and help them streamline their procurement system.

On the second day, there were presentations by Senior Security Assurance Consultant of CPTU on security aspects of e-GP and Nazmul Islam Bhuiyan, Deputy Team Leader, O & M Consultant on the practical usability aspects of e-procurement.

The delegation on November 22, 2017 visited LGED to share public procurement practices and e-GP implementation at the agency level. They also met World Bank procurement officials of World Bank Bangladesh.

Earlier, procurement delegations from Uganda, Zambia, Nepal, Afghanistan and Bhutan have visited the e-GP system of Bangladesh to acquire experiences in order to develop their own system.
The e-GP system has earned confidence of procuring entities and tenderers in Bangladesh. It has seen exponential growth since its launching in 2011. The Prime Minister opened the e-GP national portal on 2 June 2011. Then after preparatory exercise, testing and piloting it was rolled out in four agencies in 2012.

There are more than 1300 procuring agencies in the country and until 19 November 1167 of those were registered in the system. In June 2012, the number of registered tenderers was only 295 which was 40 thousand up to November 21, 2017. In June 2012, the total number of tenders invited through e-GP was 14 and the total value was 24 crore. Now the number of tenders invited through e-GP is about 126 thousand and the value is more than 145 million US dollars.

There have been substantial changes in performance after implementation of e-GP which is now more than 40 per cent of total public procurement in the country.

In 2007 about 15 per cent of the contract awards used to be made public whereas in e-GP system 100 per cent of the contracts are published on e-GP website. About 70 per cent of the tender notices were published in 2007 and in 2017 it is 100 per cent in e-GP. In 2007, only 10 per cent of contract award decisions were made within the initial tender validity period and in e-GP it stood at 99.5 per cent in 2016.