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The Financial Express
23 June, 2009
More than ten thousand officials will be trained in public procurement in three years, writes Md Shafiul Alam
“I evaluated tenders as a member of the Tender Evaluation Committee (TEC) and those were done as per the provisions of public procurement act and rules. Sometimes I went through the books of the act and rules; discussed with others concerned and learnt something from them. But my knowledge and learning on the issues were not academic and formal. This also used to make me shaky. I could not be confident,” this was the pre-training observation of Masud Karim, Sub-divisional Engineer of the Roads and Highways Department (RHD).
But in the third week of the three-week residential training course on public procurement of goods, works and services organized by the Central Procurement Technical Unit (CPTU) Karim expressed his satisfaction and told this correspondent, “Now I feel myself confident; I understand the nitty-gritty of public procurement act and rules; I now have the capacity of dealing in any issue of public procurement,” claimed a happy Karim who, among 24 government officials, participated in the 13th training course at the Engineering Staff College Bangladesh (ESCB) at Bausia, Gazaria in Munshiganj district in June, 2009.
While the 13th training course on public procurement was at its last stage on June 14, 2009 at a hall of the ESCB, the Director general of CPTU Amulya Kumar Debnath was opening the 14th course in another hall where 29 officers gathered to participate in the three-week course scheduled to end on July 2, 2009.
The DG, as in previous courses, presented an overview of the training, reforms in public procurement, Public Procurement Act-2006 and Public Procurement Rules-2008 and other aspects before the participants.
“He said implementation of any project on schedule is very important, because the public money is invested for the benefit of the people. So this should be effective and fruitful. If the process is delayed, it will cost more and the purpose of public procurement will not be served.”
Amulya Kumar Debnath said if the planning and other preparation of any project involve 20 per cent of the activities the rest 80 per cent lie in its implementation. “So you should be equipped well with the act, rules and procedures of public procurement as it constitutes almost 80 per cent of the development expenditures under the Annual Development Program (ADP).”
Fineurop SPA and the ESCB are carrying out the Project Implementation and Capacity Development on behalf of the CPTU under the Public Procurement Reform Project (PPRP)-II. The PICD is the first component of the project.
Under this component, the phase-wise training program for government officials, particularly those dealing in public procurement, commenced on March 10, 2008, said Liam Heavin, Team Leader of the Fineurop.
Dean of the ESCB ARM Anwar Hossain said,” The three-week training is residential and comprehensive. It is of international standard. Trainees here have to abide by certain instructions. Library for study, indoor-outdoor games, newspapers, television and sightseeing are available here. The environment of the ESCB campus is so natural and quiet that the trainees feel at home while they are trained for three weeks. They can also visit their families at home in the weekend. He said the participants are also given per diem and all sorts of relevant training materials. Our target is to create a big workforce of efficient procuring officials, he observed.
The participants also expressed satisfaction at the quality of service, foods, boarding and other facilities provided by the ESCB.
In every month one course opens and the other ends. Kazi Jahangir Alam, Director of CPTU, looks after the training on public procurement. He said, “Such three-week trainings under the Public Procurement Reform Project (PPRP-II) are the part of 108 such courses to be held in next three years. About 3240 officials will be trained under the three-week courses. There are also courses of different duration. In total more than ten thousand officials will be trained in public procurement.”
The Local Government Engineering Department (LGED), Roads and Highways Department (RHD), Bangladesh Water Development Board (BWDB) and Rural Electrification Board (REB) are four target agencies considered under this reform project.
Hosne Ara Akhter, Deputy Director (Mechanical) of the Bangladesh Railway, a participant in the 14th course, explained the rationale of her joining the training. When asked she said, “At my office I have to deal with some request for quotations (RFQ), Direct Procurement Method (DPM) and others. So I need formal and practical training for which I have come here.”
Like Akhter of Bangladesh Railway, other participants also came from Planning Commission, Rural Electrification Board, Local Government and Engineering Department, Water Development Board, Public Works Department, Rajdhani Unnyan Kartripakkha, Bangladesh Chemical Industries Corporation, Dhaka WASA, Ministry of Social Welfare, Ministry of Housing and Public Works, Padma Multi-purpose Bridge Authority, Film Archive Department, Social Welfare Department, and Roads and Highways.
“We want to make the endeavor a success because efficient handling of government purchases depends on the skill and knowledge of the procuring officials of different ministries and divisions of the government”, said the
Dean of the ESCB.
Salma Akhter, now a senior faculty trainer at ESCB and former deputy chief engineer of Mongla Port, was imparting training to the participants of the 13th batch. Her easy-going before the participants made the session lively and interesting. Such a lucid and practical was his deliberation that the trainees feel at home to exercise even some complex parts of public procurement. With about 30 years of experience at the port she also served as project director of several projects where she had to procure so many goods, works and services.
She was mentioning one situation after another relating to public procurement process like provisional sums in works and performance security etc and asking all the participants what were the common practices done by them. As the trainees made their points she asked them to open at pages of the relevant provisions of the PPA and PPR and then check. The trainees found that their actions in some of the cases were not like what they were doing. And now they got corrected. The issue of provisional sums in procuring works was also discussed and all confusions were removed.
Saeedur Rahman, Mustafizur Rahman and Rezaur Rahman are the ESCB training specialists on public procurement while Salma Akhter is a senior faculty trainer of ESCB and other trainers are Liaquat, Tarafder Mahmud and Zakir Hossian.
Rezaur Rahman and Engineer Liaquat gave some practical exercises on tender validity, notification of awards, performance security to the participants of the 13th batch. The trainees set the dates as per their choice and then came up with their calculations on the board as per the provisions of law on the basis of working days and calendar days. Rezaur and Liaquat said the participants are given practical oriented problems and asked to resolve those within the framework of PPA and PPR provisions.
Participants the 13th batch was found to be exercising on the notification of award, performance security, provisional sums etc.
“Difference between my pre-training and post-training understanding and knowledge on the issues of public procurement is a lot,” said AKM Shafiquzzaman, Assistant Engineer of Bangladesh Water Development Board and participant of the 13th batch. I had been in tender opening committees and member secretary of tender evaluation committee. This started since my joining. I went through the book of rules, but to know avail. There had also been pressure of other official activities. So I only had surface knowledge on public procurement. It used give me pain, because doing anything without sufficient knowledge is really difficult. I did not have confidence. My understanding was based on secondary sources that lacked reliability. But after the training I am now confident. He said if the soft copies of the modules were given it would help trainees more. There should also be real case based examples in the training, he observed.
Golamur Rahman, Executive Engineer and Toufiq Hasan, Assistant Engineer from LGED participated in the 13th batch training. They said they have involved in procurement at LGED for a long time. They have even some training on the Public procurement Regulation 2003. But they did not have sufficient knowledge on the PPA-2006 and PPR-2008. “We have come here to be well equipped on the PPA and PPR provisions. We are satisfied and confident now.” They said some questions and answers in the training may be the same for other batches. So if a question- answer session is made visual it may be displayed for all batches. More case studies may also be presented in the training, they observed.
Hafizur Rahman, another participant in the 13th course was from Rural Electrification Board. He is the Assistant Director and looks after socio-economic monitoring and evaluation. He said mainly REB procures works, but some services are also procured. So I have to know details of the PPR and also the donor guidelines to do public procurement activities smoothly. I have benefited tremendously from this training. It would be better if I would get the chance to do any other diploma on public procurement, he observed.
In the new 14th batch Md Jashim Uddin, DD of Film Archive, Anisuzzaman, Senior Assistant Chief of Ministry of Housing and Public Works, Anisur Rahman, Assistant Chief of Planning Commission, said they do procurement activities with surface knowledge. But they do not feel confident and some times they become hesitant to take decision as per act and rule. So they have joined the training.
The issues of public procurement being taught in the three-week training include, among others, procurement planning, inventory management, approval process, procurement methods, advertisement, JVCA, standard procurement related documents, per-qualification, complaints and appeals, contract administration and management, procurement post-review, procurement practices by major development partners, contract strategy, procurement ethics, supply chain management, preparation of tender data sheet, tender opening and evaluation, approval, award, signing, debriefing, bill of quantities, contract performance, EOI, RFP, TOR, negotiations and so on. Group presentation and exercise for each of the issues are done.
The Director General of CPTU said the best five performers in the trainings will be trained further on procurement by the CIPS in the UK. More courses on procurement will be offered by the CIPS in Bangladesh also, he added. |
