Performance evaluation and challenges for implementing e-GP : a case of roads & highways department, Bangladesh

Abstract

This public Procurement is an influential factor in the national economy and an important function of government. e-GP was implemented in RHD for ensuring transparency and accountability in procurement which in turns establish the good governance. A transformational change has been occurred in the field of public procurement of Bangladesh after the introduction of e-GP. This system make procurement activities more effective in terms of both time and cost. e-GP is changing the way of purchase goods, works and services. E-procurement has already been introduced in RHD for last 3 years. Now time has come to evaluate the performance of e- GP in RHD in last 3 years. This will help us to specify the difficulties regarding e-GP and finding the way of solve these. The objectives of this study is to identify the performance improvement in procurement activities after implementing e-GP system in RHD and to suggest recommendations for further improvements needed in e-GP system. The study mainly covered the functioning of e-GP in RHD, its performance and various challenges faced by RHD during e- GP operations. Questionnaire survey is done in this study to collect primary data. A structured questionnaire was used for this purpose. The questionnaire was developed to assess awareness, knowledge and available ICT infrastructure of RHD procuring entities. Secondary data such as e- GP works related data were collected from RHD website for the financial year of 2012-13, 2013- 2014 and 2014-15. After implementation of e-GP, RHD processing total 4264 no. of tender by using e-GP procedure while the target was 3900 no. which indicates the overall success of RHD in e-GP implementation. Another type of secondary data collected from PROMIS Overall Report for these three years. This study covered total 15 (fifteen) KPI which are directly related to the e- GP system and represents Transparency, Efficiency, Competitiveness and Compliance in procurement activities of RHD. Out of these KPI’s RHD shows improvement in achievement of 13 (thirteen) KPI, and 2 (two) of them shows poor results. e-GP implementation also raising the awareness among the RHD officials. Most of the RHD officials are used to operate this internet based system properly though few of them are not yet used to. Besides this, RHD faced some technical and operational challenges in its everyday e-GP operations. Based on the analysis of the collected information, some practical measures are recommended for better implementation of e-GP in RHD in this study.