The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Bangladesh Public Procurement Authority (BPPA), Mr. Mohammed Shoheler Rahman Chowdhury, has said procurement can now be a good profession.

He said this while speaking at a training session for the 40^th public procurement management training course of the Bangladesh Civil Service Administration Academy at the conference room of BPPA in Dhaka on 19 February 2024.

A total of 20 BCS officials from various ministries, divisions, organizations and deputy commissioner offices attended the two-week course at BCS Administration Academy which is going to end on 29 February 2024.

Director (Joint Secretary) of BPPA, Mr. Md. Mahfuzar Rahman, made a presentation on reforms, digitization and capacity development in public procurement in Bangladesh.

Assistant Director of BCS Administration Academy and Deputy Course Coordinator Ms. Mohua Afroz was also present during the session.

In his presentation, Mr. Md. Mahfuzar Rahman focused on the background of reform, its process, progress and benefits in public procurement during the last two decades. He highlighted remarkable achievements and positive changes made in public procurement management through implementation of electronic government procurement (e-GP) by the former Central Procurement Technical Unit (CPTU).

He also highlighted overall functions of BPPA in creating professionalism and capacity development in public procurement.

While speaking as the chair at the program, BPPA CEO informed the participants of various issues relating to public procurement. These include pre-shipment inspection (PSI), ICT-related security of e-GP, maintaining confidentiality of passwords of procuring entities and tenderers, and back-up management for the system.

BPPA’s Senior System Analyst Mr. Md. Mosharraf Hussain informed the participants of plans for ensuring effective back-up management and disaster recovery for e-GP system.

The trainees include BCS officials starting from the 24^th to the 40^th batches. At the BPPA session, they made various queries on public procurement while BPPA CEO replied to them. He asserted that all government procuring entities must conduct public procurement through e-GP from now as per a government decision.

“In a primary estimate, we have identified that there are about 1,600 procuring agencies in the country while 1,450 of those have registered with e-GP system,” said BPPA chief, adding BPPA will soon take a special drive to bring the rest under e-GP system.”

Out of a total of 64 districts, offices of 55 deputy commissioners have already been added to the e-GP system.

It can be mentioned here that as part of the reform process, the government transformed former CPTU of the Implementation Monitoring Evaluation Division under the Ministry of Planning into BPPA on September 18, 2023. The World Bank has been providing support to BPPA in implementing various reforms in public procurement.