Cabinet nod to launch Electronic Government Procurement

• 10 recommendations by Working Group get approval 
• An e-GP Secretariat to be set up at Ministry of Finance to monitor implementation 
• System to stage a pilot run first

 Cabinet this week gave approval for the Finance Ministry to roll out the much discussed Electronic Government Procurement (e-GP) in the Public Procurement System. 

Approval was given by the Cabinet of Ministers this week to implement 10 recommendations outlined by the Working Group appointed by the Finance Ministry. To monitor the establishment of an e-GP System under a special project monitoring committee, an e-GP Secretariat will be set up comprising members drawn from the same stakeholder agencies represented in the Working Group.

Further, the Working Group also recommended carrying out a comprehensive Business Process Re-engineering of Government procurement steps and to document the software specification of national eProcurement of data interchanging and interfacing with other present government systems and upcoming systems such as the Integrated Treasury Management System (ITMIS) and Revenue Administration Management Information System (RAMIS). 

The action plan developed by the Working Group has also been approved for implementation. Further, Cabinet today gave the go-ahead to call for open competitive bids to select a solution provider based on the technical specifications articulated in the Action Plan.

The number of other recommendations by the Working Group, including maintaining a web-based portal centrally at the proposed e-GP Secretariat, the introduction of e-GP system for government agencies at all national levels, testing and implementing the e-GP System initially on a pilot basis for selected government agencies for selected goods, works and services and creating an e-Procurement intranet to share highly confidential data with public institutions which will be associated with secured government networks have also been approved by Cabinet this week. 

Further, approval was also given to set up a call centre help desk 24x7 at the e-GP Secretariat to ensure smooth implementation. (CD)