“Electronic government procurement (e-GP) system is an addition towards Smart Bangladesh. The government is moving towards Smart Bangladesh from Digital Bangladesh. Country’s budget is now huge, which is over Tk 6.78 trillion. If there is no smartness in implementing such a large budget and if we conduct all activities manually, definitely various troubles may surface.”

Md. Sahiduzzaman, Deputy Commissioner and District Magistrate, Khagrachari Hill District, said this while speaking as the chief guest at a workshop of Government-Tenderers Forum (GTF) in Khagrachari  on 16 February 2023.

The workshop was conducted by the Central Procurement Technical Unit (CPTU) of Implementation Monitoring and Evaluation Division (IMED) under the Ministry of Planning. Bangladesh Center for Communication Programs (BCCP) arranged it under the auspices of Digitizing Implementation Monitoring and Public Procurement Project (DIMAPP).

The CPTU has been implementing the DIMAPPP since 2017 with support from the World Bank. Senior System Analyst of CPTU Md. Mosharraf Hussain presided over the workshop held at the office of Deputy Commissioner, Khagrachari.

“I came to know that GTFs have been formed in all 64 districts, which is a mammoth task, indeed. I express gratitude to CPTU for their innovative contributions to conceiving and implementing the idea of forming GTF to help a build a platform for procuring entities and tenderers,” said Md. Sahiduzzaman.

GTFs will help establish mutual cooperation among procuring entities and tenderers in contract implementation by reducing confusions among them about procurement issues. In the past, incidents used to take place centering dropping of tenders and many of the tenderers couldn’t submit tenders, he said.

Through e-GP, any registered tenderer can now take part in tendering from any place, which was previously difficult as tenderers were not allowed to enter the area. This trouble has been reduced to a great extent through e-GP, he observed.

Md. Mosharraf Hussain said, through GTF, we want to focus on e-GP and its features. In 1999, we first identified numerous problems in government procurement as there was no legal framework for public procurement. After a lot of preparations, e-GP was inaugurated in 2011 by Honorable Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. Now e-GP has become a fully digitized system to take the country’s development process ahead, he added.

A total of 71 participants including 29 PEs, 27 tenderers, nine journalists, four bankers, attended the workshop. Participants, especially tenderers, civil society members and journalists made various observations and queries. During the workshop, Khagrachari GTF committee was reconstituted.