Dodoma — THE Public Procurement Regulatory Authority (PPRA) plans to come up with indicative prices to guide government’s institutions in public procurement processes.
The new development comes to promote transparency, management of funds, accountability and control as the government starts using the new online procurement system.
The National e-Procurement System of Tanzania (NeST) came into effect from July 1, 2023 meant to increase transparency and accountability in the public procurement.
It also facilitates e-registration, e-tendering, e-contract management, e-catalogue and e-auction.
PPRA Chief Executive Officer Eliakim Maswi told the media yesterday that the move is to ensure value for money and address price inflation, prevent misconduct and promote compliance and monitoring.
He said they will be reviewing the cap prices after every three months to ensure they cope with the market value thus have a ceiling for a fair prices and advocate for openness in the procurement process.
Mr Maswi called on all government institutions to ensure that they register with the NeST system because by October 1, 2023, all public institutions will be required to have registered and start using the system.
“I ask all government institutions to register in the NeST system because from October all procurement activities will be conducted through this system” he said.
In 2023/24 the government has set aside 40.4bn/- for PPRA budget, whereby 20bn/- will be used to ensure smooth operation and enhanced efficiency of the NeST.
Mr Maswi noted that the first phase of the construction of the NeST system has been completed, which covers e-registration and e-tendering saying it will transform PPRA to a proactive institution.
This phase involved setting up the module for user registration, services and products (e-Registration) and the driving and managing the procurement process module (e-Trending).
“This will help to solve technical challenges to meet the government’s needs in the procurement sector,” stated.
The system will largely eliminate human interaction and human decisions, something which will help all bidders to be served equally,”he said.
He said the government has come up with locally designed e-procurement system to address the shortcomings such as lack of transparency, corruption loopholes and long process of tendering.
“The current system provides an opportunity for bidders to influence the decisions of relevant bodies such as Procurement Units, Tender Boards and responsible officials, but the NeST system will eliminate discretion decision-making and instead all decisions will be based on the processing of the system based on relevant tender criteria,” he stated.
He insisted that they will not hesitate to take action to bidders who fail to observe the public procurement guideline.
In order to facilitate access to accurate and important information quickly, the NeST system is connected to 14 government systems, including the Business Registration and Licensing Agency (BRELA), the Business Licensing System (TAUSI), the TRA Taxpayer Information System, Government electronic Payment Gateway (GePG) and Mbeya University of Science and Technology (MUST).