Economic Reporter :
Bangladesh on Sunday signed a US$10 million additional financing agreement with the World Bank to expand and improve government’s procurement system to ensure effective use of public money and increase transparency.
The agreement was signed by Kazi Shofiqul Azam and Rajashree Paralkar on behalf of the government and the World Bank, respectively, at the Economic Relations Division, said a press release.
“Bangladesh has made a gradual improvement in its public procurement system by shifting from traditional procurement practices to international standards through digitization,” said Rajashree Paralkar, Acting World Bank Country Director for Bangladesh.
“Results are visible in the economy, efficiency, and transparency of the system that ensures better value for money,” the WB official added.
The acting country director said, “The additional financing will contribute to further strengthen the capacity of the procurement system and meet the growing demand of the procurement entities. This in turn will improve the country’s investment climate and accelerate the pace of poverty reduction.”
The additional financing to the Public Procurement Reform II project will help set up a modern data center with 200 terra-byte storage capacity and a mirror site to replace an existing lower capacity data center.
The new center will help the procurement system keep pace with growing demand from public procurement entities. With robust security features and 180 times more capacity, the new center will offer storage for 8.6 million tenders and support about 3,25,000 registered bidders.
The financing will also continue to support professional certification and training on public procurement. The project has helped 89 officials to receive member status and professional diplomas at the Britain-based Chartered Institute of Procurement and supply, while 84 others have completed master’s degrees in procurement.
The project has facilitated training on public procurement for about 2,700 participants, ensuring that over 85 percent of the four key procuring entities have at least one trained staff.
“The government has prioritized technology-based development of the country systems. The introduction of electronic government procurement, e-GP, in the recent years under a single national web portal has laid a good foundation of public procurement that regulates procurement, procurement laws and associated documentations,” said Kazi Shofiqul Azam, Additional Secretary, Economic Relations Division.
Bangladesh on Sunday signed a US$10 million additional financing agreement with the World Bank to expand and improve government’s procurement system to ensure effective use of public money and increase transparency.
The agreement was signed by Kazi Shofiqul Azam and Rajashree Paralkar on behalf of the government and the World Bank, respectively, at the Economic Relations Division, said a press release.
“Bangladesh has made a gradual improvement in its public procurement system by shifting from traditional procurement practices to international standards through digitization,” said Rajashree Paralkar, Acting World Bank Country Director for Bangladesh.
“Results are visible in the economy, efficiency, and transparency of the system that ensures better value for money,” the WB official added.
The acting country director said, “The additional financing will contribute to further strengthen the capacity of the procurement system and meet the growing demand of the procurement entities. This in turn will improve the country’s investment climate and accelerate the pace of poverty reduction.”
The additional financing to the Public Procurement Reform II project will help set up a modern data center with 200 terra-byte storage capacity and a mirror site to replace an existing lower capacity data center.
The new center will help the procurement system keep pace with growing demand from public procurement entities. With robust security features and 180 times more capacity, the new center will offer storage for 8.6 million tenders and support about 3,25,000 registered bidders.
The financing will also continue to support professional certification and training on public procurement. The project has helped 89 officials to receive member status and professional diplomas at the Britain-based Chartered Institute of Procurement and supply, while 84 others have completed master’s degrees in procurement.
The project has facilitated training on public procurement for about 2,700 participants, ensuring that over 85 percent of the four key procuring entities have at least one trained staff.
“The government has prioritized technology-based development of the country systems. The introduction of electronic government procurement, e-GP, in the recent years under a single national web portal has laid a good foundation of public procurement that regulates procurement, procurement laws and associated documentations,” said Kazi Shofiqul Azam, Additional Secretary, Economic Relations Division.
