Electronic bidding system launched

THE government on Monday formally launched a centralised electronic bidding system for procurement of goods and services. The much-awaited national portal for e-procurement is targeted at increasing transparency and nondiscrimination and creating healthy competition among bidders. Chairman of the Council of Ministers Khil Raj Regmi inaugurated the system amid a function organised to mark the seventh anniversary of the Public Procurement Monitoring Office (PMMO). “The system will play a vital role in making procurement transparent and competitive,” said Dhan Bahadur Tamang, secretary of the PMMO. He added that initially eprocurement would be implemented for procurement of goods and consulting services. With the adoption of the central e-bidding system, the government plans to gradually phase out the existing bidding procedure used by different government agencies. Under the central e-procurement system, all the national and international level procurements of the government will take place through a single online platform. The government has not been able to implement the e-bidding system fully in all the areas including selection of contractors for development projects due to the reluctance of multilateral donors to use it for projects funded by them. Donors had raised the issue of “security concerns” and asked the government to go for a new e-bidding system that maintains security of national and international bidders. The World Bank (WB) has approved e-bidding only for national- level bidding under the existing bidding provision, while the Asian Development Bank (ADB) has largely been reluctant to adopt e-bidding for both national and international bidding under the current system. Usually, donors have been selecting the contractors themselves for projects executed under grants, but the normal e-bidding process is used for projects financed by loans. Tamang said donor-funded projects too would have to follow the central portal’s e-bidding. However, the new system dœs not have a feature for online bidding for hiring contractors for construction works. “We will continue upgrading the system and make it possible for hiring contractors for construction projects,” Tamang added. All the government agencies will be required to register with the central portal to place their procurement notices. Similarly, bidders have to register with the portal by submitting their essential information to make e-submission of bids.