Sri Lanka has appreciated public procurement environment and electronic government procurement (e-GP) system in Bangladesh.
A three-member delegation of the South Asian country's National Procurement Commission (NPC) is now in Dhaka on a four-day visit.
The delegation, headed by NPC member Dr. Palitha Ekanaiyake, held a meeting on Tuesday with the Central Procurement Technical Unit (CPTU) of the Implementation Monitoring and Evaluation Division (IMED) that works under the Ministry of Planning.
IMED Secretary Md Mofizul Islam chaired the meeting.
A press release said the Sri Lankan delegation is visiting Bangladesh to gain knowledge and experiences on public procurement reform and e-GP implementation.
A visiting delegation member, M Vamadevan, said their government will formulate a new procurement act to get it passed by their parliament.
"We are facing challenges in addressing deviation from the guidelines,” said the NPC member.
The Sri Lankan delegation said they have found Bangladesh's legal framework of public procurement and e-GP is very comprehensive and the implementation status is much advance.
Lankan team leader Palitha Ekanaiyake said that their Commission was formed two years back to recast the existing procurement guidelines on public procurement and also to introduce e-GP in their country.
The IMED Secretary said, “In all aspects of e-GP implementation, Bangladesh is in a leading position in South Asia and beyond.”
He said both the countries will benefit through such exchange of visit in taking forward the agenda of digitisation of public service delivery.
The Sri Lankan team invited the CPTU officials to visit Sri Lanka and assist them in streamlining their procurement system.
Earlier, delegates from Uganda, Zambia, Nepal, Afghanistan and Bhutan visited Bangladesh’s e-GP system to obtain experience for developing their own system.
Director General of CPTU and Additional Secretary Md Faruque Hossain, Senior System Analyst Md Mosharraf Hussain, Director (Coordination and Training) Shish Haider Chowdhury also addressed the meeting.
The e-GP system has earned confidence of procuring entities and tenderers in Bangladesh since its launching in 2011.
The Prime Minister opened e-GP national portal on June 02, 2011. Then it was rolled out in four agencies in 2012 after preparatory exercise, testing and piloting.
There are more than 1300 procuring agencies in the country and 1167 of those until November 19 were registered with the system.
In June 2012, the number of registered tenderers was only 295, which is now more than 39 thousand.
