Major Breakthrough In Procurement Reformse-GP logs Tk7,92,664cr tenders invitations

The implementation of Electronic Government Procurement (e-GP) has been a landmark success for the government in building "Digital Bangladesh Vision" as tender worth around Tk792,664 crore were invited through e-GP up to the middle of December 2023.

The e-GP system started its journey in Bangladesh on 2 June, 2011. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina had inaugurated the e-GP portal on the day.

Since 2012, the e-GP system witnessed an exponential growth over a decade with wider adoption of the electronic tendering across the government procuring entities and private sector tenderers.

The newly-established Bangladesh Public Procurement Authority (BPPA) is the custodian of the system. The e-GP is practiced by Procuring Entities and the tenderers.

Planning Minister MA Mannan said the BPPA has been created to strengthen further the operations of the electronic government procurement. Efforts are on to enhance the coverage of the e-GP to 100%, he added.

BPPA CEO Mohammed Shoheler Rahman Chowdhury said: "We're not looking at the percentage of e-GP coverage in the country.

We're advancing in a targeted way. We've targeted 32 larger procuring agencies which consume about 80 per cent of total public procurement of the country and most of them are now conducting procurement through e-GP system."

There has been a Cabinet decision to implement e-GP in all procuring entities. "We're also focusing on the health and education sectors to digitise their procurement," he mentioned.

AKM Shamsuddoha, president of Dohatec New Media, an international software vendor closely associated with e-GP system, said Bangladesh saves $1.1 billion a year from the use of the e-GP system according to the World Bank. The system has reduced the average procurement processing time from 100 days to 57 days.

He said the BPPA, formerly CPTU, has trained over 22,000 government officials and over 15,000 registered tenderers and 1,300 bankers.

"We were honored to be a part of this internationally recognised success by way of involvement in the development of the system, operation maintenance, and providing professional training to bring about the required capacity building in the government personnel," he added.

Up to 17 December 2023, a total of 761,146 tenders were invited through e-GP involving a total estimated cost of Tk792,664 crore. The number is growing day by day. The government earns revenue worth about Tk400 crore a year through the e-GP system.

At present about 40% of the national budget and 80% of the Annual Development Programme (ADP) are spent on public procurement. Total annual expenditures on public procurement are worth about US$30 billion a year.

On 5 July 2023, the Planning Minister placed the Bangladesh Public Procurement Authority (BPPA) Bill 2023 in the Jatiya Sangsad (JS).

The government appointed Mohammed Shoheler Rahman Chowdhury as the first Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the newly-established BPPA on 28 November 2023.

BPPA officials said public procurement is done with public funds and that is why citizens have rights to know about public procurement. To fulfill the rights, BPPA has established a Citizen Portal to disclose public procurement information to citizens.

For further improvement of the overall procurement management and establishing a sustainable procurement environment in the country, the government has recently transformed the Central Procurement Technical Unit (CPTU) of IMED into BPPA.

The e-GP has been recognised as a reliable and dynamic system by procuring entities and tenderers across the country. It is also beneficial to environment as the system is reducing the use of paper and travel in connection with tender submission.

The number of procuring agencies registered in e-GP increased from the initial 5 in 2011 to 910 in 2016 and to 1447 as of 17 December 2023.

The number of tenderers registered with e-GP on 17 July 2023 was 1,10,856. This number is increasing day by day.

The number of women tenderers registered with e-GP stood at 3388 on 17 December 2023.

Up to 17 December 2023, a total of 761,146 tenders were invited through e-GP involving a total estimated cost of Tk792,664 crore.

The number of banks registered with e-GP is now 52 and with 6,876 branches across the country they are providing payment services to tenderers.

The average number of participants in each tender increased to 26.07 (LTM and OTM combined) in December 2023 from only 4 in 2007.

The e-GP system is earning Tk400-450 crore annually. The total income from inception to 31 July 2023 was Tk2137.69 crore. The amount of money has been deposited in the government treasury.

The BPPA is working to include procurement of services in the e-GP system shortly.