Challenges in project implementation- a case study in BEZA

Abstract

As we know that the Bangladesh Economic Zones Authority under Prime Minister’s Office is one of the leading investment promotion agencies in the south and south-east Asia. To meet the demand of investor’s especially ready land & connectivity and utilities e.g. power, gas and water, BEZA needs to handle lots of procurement every day. BEZA also needs to procure PPP Developer and G2G developer for developing, operating and finance EZs, CETP, STP and Solid Waste Management. This study aims to identify the current scenario of procurement management, the challenges of procurement and the possible barriers of implementing projects in BEZA. Bangladesh Economic Zones Authority (BEZA), an autonomous organization, has been chosen as scope of the Report since it follows procurement guidelines of Government of Bangladesh and all of development partners under their financed projects. In this Report, I have tried my best to present the procurement progress and its challenges in BEZA for developing EZs. There are 7 separate chapters in this study. Firstly, in the chapter 1 general introduction has been discussed. Secondly, in the chapter 2, there are discussion about BEZA including its projects with the using of primary survey and secondary surveys. Later chapter 3 contains discussion on sustainable procurement and involvement of BEZA. In chapter 4 includes Literature Review of this report. Procurement Manpower Analysis of BEZA has been discussed in chapter 5. In the penultimate part, chapter 6, Challenges of Procurement in BEZA has been discussed and finally In Chapter 7 specific recommendations to overcome challenges of project implementation in BEZA is being included. In order to complete the analysis, BEZA officials, procurement experts and project directors of different project under BEZA have been interviewed, and some BEZA employees and some bidders have been surveyed. They were asked to provide their opinions on current status of Project implementation including which challenges they find in Project implementation. Which changes they expect in public sector procurement, and what they think about the changes in future for improvement for project implementation. After finding their opinions, data analysis has been completed using analytical tools. This has been found that BEZA has already an existing capacity of Project implementation through procurement management, Project directors and field staffs. In order to ensure efficiency in project implementation no. & capacity of technical person and improving cross-functional coordination should be considered with more importance. According to experts, this is essential now to put more emphasis on financial allocation and strategic coordinated effort for project implementation capacity development in order to extract the success of BEZA by implementing its projects efficiently. Findings of this study would be useful to Project implementing personnel and BEZA officials.