Public procurement rules brace for major revision

The government is set to make a major revision in the public procurement rules (PPR), eliminating the existing provision of 10 per cent price cap on the official estimation of any public procurement, officials said on Wednesday.

After the revision, the public sector procuring entities (PEs) would be barred from giving any cap on the tender price and the bidders would be allowed to quote real prices for procurement of any goods, works or services, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Bangladesh Public Procurement Authority (BPPA) S M Moin Uddin Ahmed said.

At present, bidders cannot quote prices 10 per cent higher or lesser than the official estimation in government procurement. In case of exceeding such quoted prices, the PEs usually cancel such tenders.

According to the proposed new rules, the BPPA has developed a formula for calculating the quoted price by the bidders, in which the weighted average of value of the recent-past market price of goods or works, the official estimated prices, and the weight of all the bidders' prices would be considered.

The BPPA has consulted different professionals, aiming to revise the present PPR 2008. It sat with journalists on Wednesday.

Mr Moin said all the government procurements must have to be completed through the e-GP (electronic-government procurement) under the proposed PPR 2025 as it is not mandatory under the PPR 2008.

Some provisions, including introducing a "Sustainable public procurement" and framing a procurement strategy, have been incorporated in the proposed PPR, he said.

The BPPA has put in place some 153 clauses in the proposed PPR 2025 compared to that of 130 in the PPR 2008.

It has already scrapped seven clauses of PPR 2025, incorporating 12 fresh ones and revising 94 ongoing clauses, the BPPA officials said.

The BPPA's proposed revision is set to prevent the project implementing agency from splitting any big public procurement package into small ones for tendering in a bid to check any possible fraudulent practice and scam.

It is also going to restrict the authority of the line ministries in the approval process of the small packages and recommend a provision for getting prior approval from the "Cabinet committee on government purchases (CCGP) for the same", BPPA officials said.

If the public sector PEs split any package into small ones, the estimated prices of the same would have to be accumulated and the amount would be treated as one package for getting approval from the cabinet committee, the BPPA officials said.

Usually, some ministries and agencies split their procurement packages into small ones for allowing their favourite contractors to participate in the bidding process and secure the development work orders, they said.

Project directors (PDs) or heads of procuring entities or ministers can approve bidding packages involving a certain amount of price.

Now, the BPPA is encouraging the PEs not to split a big procurement package into smaller ones, the BPPA officials said, quoting the draft amendment to the PPR.

Currently, the PDs can approve up to Tk 100 million worth of procurement packages for the goods and works while the HOPE can endorse a bidding price up to Tk 200 million and the Minister can approve Tk 1.0 billion worth of tender.

Meanwhile, the procuring entities have to  follow the existing 'Delegation of Financial Power' guidelines, prepared by the Finance for certain tender approval process.

The BPPA has also proposed some restrictions on direct procurement to check any fraudulent practices, as noticed in recent times.

For speeding up the tending process, it has also proposed for lessening the required time limit for the approval and completion of any tendering process.

After finalising the draft PPR, the BPPA would send it to the cabinet for getting approval, BPPA officials said.