Performance of public works department in procurement activity compliance to PPA-2006, & PPR -2008

Abstract

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. But after that the amount of procurement has increased substantially. Now PWD has procured more than Water development Board (one of the four target agency).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 is 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 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 of 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, tender should be floated only after availability of sufficient fund.