Massive awareness on sustainable public procurement demanded

Business Report :

The government is in the process of implementation of Sustainable Public Procurement (SPP) and this huge task involves massive capacity and awareness building, legal coverage and rephrasing of all procurement documents.

Mirza Ashfaqur Rahman, chief executive officer of Bangladesh Public Procurement Authority (BPPA), IMED under the Planning Ministry, informed this at a Policy Dialogue on Bangladesh’s SPP Policy held at a hotel in the capital on Thursday.

Md. Sakhawat Hossain, director of the BPPA, made an elaborate presentation on the roadmap of BPPA to implement SPP, said a press release.

Business Initiative Leading Development (BUILD) in collaboration with International Trade Centre’s (ITC’s) SheTrades Initiative, with support from the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO), organised the programme to disseminate reports on a survey on SPP Policy to identify policy implementation challenges and opportunities.

Bangladesh has made its public procurement system digitized, though not fully, but a major portion of procurement is now done through the much-known e-GP (electronic Government Procurement) system.

Mirza Ashfaqur said now the government is focusing on implementation of SPP, which is an obligation for achieving target 12.7 of the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) in public procurement. “This needs a massive awareness among all concerned including women entrepreneurs and tenderers,” he added.

A steering committee, headed by Planning Adviser, is looking after the implementation. With this view, BPPA is in consultation with the stakeholders and as part of it, the authority is going to conduct further consultations with women entrepreneurs and other concerned sectors.