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Date: 29/01/2011
The Financial Express
Second Post-Editorial
Md Shafiul Alam
Public procurement, that accounts for over three billion US dollars a year, is an important area of governance in the country. Transparency, accountability, fair competition and equal treatment to all are the essence of public procurement. The use of public money in the process calls for strict adherence to the Public Procurement Act (PPA) 2006 and the Public Procurement Rules (2008).
The government is implementing some specific activities to improve governance in public procurement. The Central Procurement Technical Unit of the IME Division has been implementing the Public Procurement Reform Project-II with assistance from the World Bank to institutionalize capacity building, improve procurement management, introduce electronic government procurement and generate greater awareness in the community.
It is very heartening that the government is also trying to facilitate citizen engagement or independent monitoring of the procurement process and outcome. This will serve the purpose of social accountability in public procurement. The government has already formed a Public-private Stakeholders Committee (PPSC) in this regard. The PPSC has been in its activities for the last one year. Three of its quarterly meetings have been held, two newsletters published and a case study done.
Apart from placing appropriate recommendations on procurement practices, the PPSC will devise a third-party monitoring mechanism which, if the government wants, can have a legal coverage also.
The CPTU within the IME Division now monitors procurement performance as envisaged in the PPA and PPR. But for wider social accountability and transparency, facilitating citizen engagement and independent watch will ultimately enhance credibility and image of the government.
A vibrant and free press is now playing a good watchdog role to help the government improve the status of governance. The media is also highlighting anomalies and violation of rules in the performance of public procurement. The Right to Information Act is there. But the media people collect information through their sources they have developed and the full functioning of the RTI is yet to be in practice. Some limitations cannot be overruled here.
A major casualty, in many cases, of public procurement commonly evident is the poor quality of works (roads, bridges and dykes etc). In the capital city or in other areas of the country this has been a general allegation that roads built or repaired are damaged very shortly. It is certain that some lapses either on the part of the contractors or procuring entities take place in such cases.
If the community can be involved in the procurement process it may yield a better result as done in the Philippines, India and Argentina. In the Philippines, civil society organizations (CSOs) are allowed to monitor the whole process of procurement under the public procurement law. Under a modus operandi, the CSOs monitor the procurement plan and the implementation. If any violation of rules occurs they lodge complaints with the authorities and actions are taken upon investigations.
But in Bangladesh the community for this purpose has to be sensitized well and the CSOs need to have the required knowledge and capacity to perform the task of procurement monitoring as an independent watchdog. The Institute of Governance Studies (IGS) of the BRAC University has been providing technical and expert support to the PPSC in taking forward its activities and devising a third-party monitoring mechanism pursuant to the realities here.
The Minister for Planning heads the PPSC having as many as 27 members from the public and the private sectors. Since the government is on the supply side it has to initiate the process to meet the demand of the people. Once the mechanism is finalized and accepted formally, organized CSOs may come forward to do the job. Because, there is no harm in being open while delivering good to the public.
It is to be assessed and decided to what extent it should be open.
E-mail : shafiul_1966@yahoo.com |
