e-GP: a major breakthrough in procurement reforms

Built on the Digital Bangladesh vision, the implementation of electronic Government Procurement (e-GP) has marked a remarkable success. The e-GP system started its journey in Bangladesh with the Hon’ble Prime Minister inaugurating e-GP portal on June 2, 2011.

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 (PEs) and private sector tenderers.

Now-defunct Central Procurement Technical Unit (CPTU), which has been transformed into Bangladesh Public Procurement Authority (BPPA), introduced e-GP. The system is mainly used, among others, by PEs and tenderers.

The reforms implemented in the domain of public procurement have diverse aspects like capacity development and professionalisation, citizen engagement and awareness, updating of standard tender documents, introduction of significant features in the e-GP system, and approval of Sustainable Public Procurement (SPP) Policy. The Central Procurement Technical Unit was transformed into Bangladesh Public Procurement Authority (BPPA) on September 18, 2023. The new features added to e-GP in 2022 are e-audit, e-contract management system, international competitive tender, direct procurement method, automated challan, tenderers database and integration of e-GP with iBASS++ system.

On July 5, 2023, the Planning Minister placed the Bangladesh Public Procurement Authority (BPPA) Bill 2023 in Parliament. After the Bill was passed on September 10, 2023, it received the assent of the Honorable President on September 18 and Act No. 32 of 2023, the Bangladesh Public Procurement Authority Act 2023 was published for public information.

Bangladesh Public Procurement Authority (BPPA) has been established with the enactment of the Act. The government appointed Mr. Mohammed Shoheler Rahman Chowdhury as the first Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the newly-established BPPA on  November 28, 2023. The CEO said, “We are not looking at the percentage of e-GP coverage in the country. We are advancing in a targeted way. We have targeted 32 larger procuring agencies which consume about 80 per cent of total public procurement in 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 are also focusing on the health and education sectors to digitize their procurement,” he mentioned.

Recently, the Secretary, Implementation Monitoring and Evaluation Division, under which CPTU was a unit, issued a demi-official letter to all ministries to implement e-GP in their respective divisions and departments. “We are also issuing individual letters to the entities, still publishing offline tender notices in the press, requesting them to invite tenders through e-GP system instead of the offline medium,” noted the first CEO of BPPA.

Up to February 4, 2024, a total of 7,77,059 tenders were invited through e-GP involving a total estimated cost of TK 8,11,309 crore. The number is growing day by day. The government earns revenue worth about Tk 400 crore a year from the e-GP system. The number of registered tenderers in e-GP is 112066 up to 4 February 2024. A total of 52 banks are registered in the system for payment services to tenderers.

At present about 40 per cent of the national budget and 80 per cent of the Annual Development Programme (ADP) are spent on public procurement. Total annual expenditure on public procurement is worth about 30 billion US dollars a year.

Public procurement is done with public funds and that is why citizens have the right 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 transformed the Central Procurement Technical Unit (CPTU) of IMED into Bangladesh Public Procurement Authority (BPPA).   

With the slogan “Electronic Tender, Sheikh Hasinar Upohar (gift)”, the BPPA continues to work on further expansion, simplification and sustainability of the e-GP system. Significant progress has been achieved in the implementation of e-GP from 2011 up till now.

A joint study by the World Bank and the former CPTU on public procurement in Bangladesh in 2020 revealed the following benefits from the implementation of reforms including digitisation of public procurement:

ELECTRONIC PROJECT MANAGEMENT INFORMATION SYSTEM (E-PMIS): An online self-contained database and software e-PMIS (electronic project management information system) has been developed and introduced under the initiative of IMED to ensure immediate receipt and delivery of project related information in electronic system.

Through the implementation of e-PMIS, along with the monitoring of ongoing development projects, the progress and current status of the project will be available through geo-tagging. This system will be integrated with various national systems like NID System, iBAS++, e-GP System, Project Planning System (PPS), ADP/ RADP Management System (AMS).

SUSTAINABLE PUBLIC PROCUREMENT POLICY: The government issued Sustainable Public Procurement Policy 2023 on  December 10, 2023.

The former CPTU drafted the policy and the Cabinet approved it on October 23, 2023, to add more fundamentals to public procurement, incorporating economic, social and environmental considerations. The BPPA is working towards establishing a sustainable public procurement system by 2030.

PROCUREMENT INFORMATION NOW AT FINGERTIPS OF CITIZENS: The BPPA, with a view to creating greater openness and transparency in the domain of public procurement has launched a citizen portal (www. citizen.cptu.gov.bd) to disclose various information on public procurement. Through this portal, different types of information on public procurement are now at the fingertips of citizens. This portal is useful for the government policy-makers, officials of various ministries, agencies and departments, researchers, analysts and journalists. The portal was officially launched in August 2020.

INTERNATIONAL RECOGNITION: The e-GP system of Bangladesh has been acclaimed at home and abroad. A good number of countries and organizations have visited former CPTU between 2009 and 2023 and it is going on. So far, Ethiopia and Nigeria received training in e-GP from the former CPTU between 2011 and 2023. Delegations from Gambia, Nepal, Bhutan, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Mozambique and Egypt visited former CPTU to learn about implementation of e-GP. The e-GP system has not stopped even for a day during the global COVID-19 pandemic. The system has already obtained ISO/IEC 27001:2013, ISO 22301:2019 BCMS, ISO 9001:2015 QMS, ISO 14001:2015 EMS and Business Continuity Management certifications as part of global recognition. The BPPA has been connected to South Asian Public Procurement Association Network (SAPPN) and Global Development Learning Network (GDLN), an international procurement platform.

Shafiul Alam is Senior Communication Consultant, Bangladesh Public Procurement Authority, Ministry of Planning.  [email protected]