Government commissions team for delivery of electronic government procurement system

Keith Muhakanizi, the Secretary to the Treasury, today commissioned the project management team that will oversee the delivery of the long awaited procurement system, Electronic Government Procurement system (eGP).

The cross functional teams include representatives from the Ministry of Finance, Planning & Economic Planning, National Information Technology Authority and Public Procurement & Disposal of Public Assets Authority.

In his opening remarks,  Muhakanizi said that, "Reforms in public procurement especially with eGP is one of the reforms being undertaken by Government of Uganda. ICT will enhance the procurement process and we forecast savings. GOU seeks to streamline the procurement process so as to achieve above savings."

Peter Kahiigi, Director eGovernment Services at the National Information Technology Authority highlighted that, "the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) estimates savings from implementation to be in the range of 5- 8 % of the procurement value.

Uganda spends approximately 65% (about Shs 7.754 trillion) of the government budget through procurement. This implies that with e-procurement implementation, savings in the range of Shs 387 – 620 billion would be made per year."

The officials said E-procurement will strengthen accountability by enhancing transparency and improves access to management and audit information from a central source.

They added that it will enhance transparency because technical/qualitative evaluation shall be done using a tabular format where the technical parameters are accurately defined and a score is given to every possible alternative suppliers can clearly understand in advance.