e-GP on track for 100% digitisation by FY23

The e-Government Procurement (e-GP) project – operated by the planning ministry’s Central Procurement Technical Unit (CPTU) – has brought transparency and efficiency in the process, won the confidence of stakeholders, and effectively rendered the previous system obsolete.

The e-GP system provides an online platform to carry out the procurement activities by the public agencies – mainly the procuring agencies and procuring entities.

Launched in 2017, the CPTU was set to bring 100 per cent digitalisation into the project by December 2023. But insiders say work on the system has made speedy progress, and the entire tender process is set to be digitalised within this FY, more than six months before the deadline.

CPTU, Implementation Monitoring and Evaluation Division (IMED) and implementing partner World Bank officials said the project’s successful implementation will make the government procurement process paperless, save time, and cut back the travel distance for all stakeholders.

Speaking to The Business Post, Director General of CPTU and also an Additional Secretary Mohammed Shoheler Rahman Chowdhury said, “Since the e-GP project began in 2017, it generated around $200 million or Tk 1,859 crore as revenue for the government.

“The revenue was very nominal in the first one/two years, but the e-GP project has been generating over Tk 400 crore or $47 million annually for the last two to three years. The revenue grew as people found the system accessible and transparent.”

Adding that tendering is a complex process, and the CPTU has plans to bring the contract signing process under the e-GP, Shoheler added, “We are on the verge of digitalising the contract management portion of the system.

“Auditing – the last portion of the system – would be fully digitalised within the next six months. We are planning to achieve this goal within the third quarter of FY23.”

Success of e-GP at a glance

According to the CPTU, some 1,403 organizations under 56 ministries and divisions started using e-GP in the last five years. So far, 6,489 branches of 50 banks have registered with the system.

During the period, around 99,371 bidders registered with the platform. Till date, 603,911 tenders worth Tk 613,216 crore or $72.14 billion have been invited, while 414,890 tenders among those worth Tk 362,457 crore or $42.64 billion have been awarded.   

The International Development Association (IDA) approved $55 million of original funding in July 2017 and $40 million in additional funding in February 2021, for a total of $95 million to accomplish the project.

The Bangladesh government has provided $10 million for the project.

According to a World Bank study, the use of e-GP has led to about 7 per cent savings in procurement costs compared to manual paper-based procurement. Through the use of e-GP, Bangladesh saved an estimated $1.1 billion in FY21.

The lead time for the tender (procurement time from invitation to contract signing) has dropped from 100 days in FY17 to 57 days in FY21 for all tenders.

During FY21, 80 per cent of Bangladesh’s public procurement expenditure was processed through the e-GP system, compared to only 2 per cent when the current phase of the project began in 2017.

e-GP improved market access and the bidding environment compared to manual bidding. The number of registered bidders in e-GP increased from 23,000 in FY17 to 96,446 in FY21.

An estimated 50,000 tonnes of CO2 emissions were eliminated annually from drastically diminished use of paper documents and reduced travel. Quoting the World Bank’s recent report, the CPTU said the e-GP project helped cut back on 497 million kilometres of travel.

Since the project began, it has been able to prevent some 153,559 tonnes of carbon-dioxide emissions to the environment. It also saved some 9,234 million sheets of papers till now and is projected to save some 10,287 million papers in total.

An ISO certified initiative

The e-GP – under the name Digitising Implementation Monitoring and Public Procurement (DIMAPP) Project – received the World Bank’s Directors Award for Most Innovative, Collaborative and Impactful Governance Global Practice Operations in 2021.

CPTU’s Director General Mohammed Shoheler Rahman Chowdhury said, “We have been able to install a very secure system, and secured the ISO certification on January 17 this year.

“Every system has the scope to improve and we are constantly working to identify issues in our system. We are regularly conducting audits to update the system and to fix any problems.”