Currently about 70 per cent of total public procurement are being conducted through electronic Government Procurement (e-GP).

Mirza Ashfaqur Rahman, Director (Additional Secretary) of Bangladesh Public Procurement Authority (BPPA), informed this while addressing an awareness workshop on BPPA’s functions and e-GP in Netrakona on Thursday.

He said the public procurement system has been digitized through implementation of e-GP, resulting in widespread increase in the use of the system.

Describing the progress of e-GP, he said, through the e-GP system, the average processing time of public procurement has come down to 57 days from 87.7 days.

At present, 100% of tender notification and contract award notices are being published in the e-GP system.

He noted that the use of the e-GP system saves 600 million US dollars every year.

Besides, 105 crore pages of paper so far have been saved which has reduced 1.54 lakh tonnes of carbon emissions, he added.

The workshop, organised under the Digitizing Implementation Monitoring and Public Procurement Project (DIMAP) of BPPA, was facilitated by Bangladesh Center for Communication Programs (BCCP).

With Rafiquzzaman, Additional Deputy Commissioner (General), Netrakona, in the chair, the workshop was attended by representatives of procuring entities, tenderers and journalists.

Dr. Zeenat Sultana, Program Director and Deputy CEO of Bangladesh Center for Communication Programs (BCCP) was also present at the programme.

It was informed in the event that aiming at building Smart Bangladesh under the Vision 2041, the government is working to ensure sustainable development as part of the 8th Five Year Plan and the Perspective Plan.

For this, all concerned must maintain maximum transparency and accountability while conducting public procurement in order to ensure the best use of public money.