Abstract:
Using Public funds for Public Works is of great responsibility and accountability for the
procurement officials of the government. Transparency, efficiency, accountability,
competitiveness, equitable treatment and free & fair competition are essential to be ensured
in the procurement using public funds. In Bangladesh, these could not be ensured earlier
due to a lack of proper rules and regulation. To streamline the public procurement activities,
the Government of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh has enacted Public Procurement
Act (PPA) 2006 and thereafter issued Public Procurement Rules (PPR) 2008. Since then
government agencies are bound to abide by the Act and Rules very strictly in their
procurement activities. The Central Procurement Technical Unit (CPTU) of the
Implementation Monitoring and Evaluation Division (IMED) is continually monitoring the
compliance of PPA 2006 and PPR 2008 by the target agencies in the light of 45
predetermined Key Performance Indicators (KPI).
In spite of being a major procuring agency of the country PWD is not among the four target
agency. At the time of selection of the target agency the amount of procurement in PWD is
not in the first four, especially the scope of electro-mechanical works of PWD is very limited.
But after that the amount of procurement has increased substantially.
Now PWD has procured more than Water development Board (one of the four target
agencies). For not being in the list of initial selection, the procurement activities of PWD are
not monitored keenly. Now it is required to take a look on PWD’s procurement activities.
The research has been designed under the questions if PWD’s electro-mechanical works
are following PPR 2008 completely or not; and if not, then the causes behind that. The main
objectives of the present study are to find out the extent of compliance of PPR 2008 by
PWD and to find out the gap of compliance and scope of improvement for implementation.
The related literatures and reports, particularly from PWD and SRGB, have been thoroughly
reviewed before conducting the main research work. The key findings of these reports have
been compared and analyzed which helped to draw important conclusion of the study.
A questionnaire survey was carried out to collect data of different projects undertaken by
PWD. The study result shows a clear noncompliance to the rules of PPR 2008 in PWD in
carrying out some of the compliance related KPIs. Among the 11 different compliance
issues, it has been revealed that PWD is doing well in 7 KPIs. For other 4 issues namely
submission of report by the TEC, Average number of days taken between submission of
Tender Evaluation Report and approval of contract, Average number of days between final
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approval and Notification of Award (NOA) and Percentage of Contracts where interest for
delayed payments was made are not satisfactory and a clear improvement is required in
these areas.
For improvement of these situations, some specific recommendations have been drawn.
These are (i) Compiling the contractors profile (ii) Empowering the lower tier will decrease
the time in approval process (iii) Strong adherence to law and effective internal auditing (iv)
Payment of interest in case of delayed payment should be considered carefully to protect
the interests of both the parties. (v) Introduction to e-gp (vi) Training on Procurement law
(vii) To ensure the timely payment to the contractors by availing necessary funds required.
