A stakeholder consultative workshop on revision of the Public Procurement Rules, 2008, following the Public Procurement (Amendment) Ordinance 2025, was conducted by Bangladesh Public Procurement Authority (BPPA) at the NEC Conference Room on the Bangladesh Planning Commission Campus, from 9:30 AM to 1:30PM on 23 July 2025.

Secretary, Implementation Monitoring and Evaluation Division (IMED), Mr. Md. Kamal Uddin, graced the programme as the Chief Guest. The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of BPPA, Mr. S.M. Moin Uddin Ahmed, presided over it. Nominated officials of 47 public sector organizations, who are involved in public procurement, attended the workshop.

Upon self-introduction by all participants, the Chair delivered the Address of Welcome. He mentioned that the PPR 2008 needs to be revised in line with the Public Procurement (Amendment) Ordinance 2025 published through a gazette notification on 4 May 2025.

He said, “The BPPA has a PPR revision roadmap approved by its Board. Although the revision has been stipulated by November 2025 in the roadmap, we are confident we will be able to accomplish it by September 2025. Through in-house consultation for 10 successive days and a series of meetings of the expert Technical Working Group, we have already prepared a draft of the revised PPR 2008. After today’s discussion we will upload the draft on BPPA website.” He expressed his thanks and gratitude to the participants for coming to the workshop. The CEO termed them competent in public procurement and welcomed all to an effective and lively engagement in the workshop.

In his introductory speech, the Secretary said by the time many inputs on the proposed PPR revision have been gathered. Today all experts from 47 agencies in public procurement in the public sector have gathered here. He mentioned that the government officials have to work under a system. “We have many limitations. Despite that we need to know the law and rules and we must be confident of our decisions. The revised draft of the PPR has been developed through rigorous exercise and analysis. The Secretary requested all to give specific points of their observations without any repetitions.  

Upon permission from the Chair, the Director (Deputy Secretary) of BPPA Mr. Shah Eyamin-Ul Islam made a presentation on the draft of the PPR revision. The Director at the beginning of his elaborate presentation mentioned that there had been several revisions in PPR 2008. This time largescale revisions have been proposed on the basis of the consultations, observations and practices by the major stakeholders. He made a detailed presentation on areas revisions have been proposed. The presentation contained a slide showing the proposed numbers of revisions in rules, schedules and addition and reduction of rules and schedules in the existing PPR 2008. It says the number of existing rules in PPR 2008 is 130. Of them, the number of rules in which revisions have been proposed is 88.

The major revisions proposed, as he mentioned, include removal of the 10% price cap for national works procurement under the Open Tendering Method (OTM), mandatory use of the electronic government procurement (e-GP) system, disclosure of ownership information of awarded contractors or suppliers, inclusion of physical services as a separate procurement category, bringing general work and consulting services under framework agreements, development of comprehensive procurement plans for development projects in light of procurement strategies, introduction of the reverse auction method, and legal recognition of sustainable public procurement (SPP).

The participants actively took part in the open floor discussions. The BPPA took note of their observations, suggestions and opinions. As part of the series of stakeholder workshops involving major procuring entities, BPPA has planned to organize three more workshops by 11 August 2025, engaging national procurement trainers, tenderers and the business community, as well as inter-ministerial stakeholders.