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Procurement

Tanzania: East African Member States Embrace E-Procurement

EAST African Community (EAC) partner states are fast embracing online government procurement systems in a bid to increase efficiency and promote transparency.

As it stands, Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi have already started adopting the new eprocurement system which is designed to empower public bodies to better manage public procurement.

Speaking here at the weekend, Public Procurement Regulatory Authority (PPRA) Chief Executive Officer Engineer Leonard Kapongo, said East African countries were increasingly adopting the new timeeffective system, which reduces unnecessary bureaucracies that marred public procurement processes.

“Lack of transparency breeds corruption, unfairness, and lack of competition and ultimately the government does not achieve value for money as a result of paying more for a service that could be delivered at a cheaper price,” observed Engineer Kapongo while addressing participants in the 12th East African Public Procurement Forum.

The PPRA chief emphasized that no public institutions and agencies in East Africa should be left behind in the new initiative which also aims to introduce increased efficiency, confidence in the procurement system and value for money.

“Our partner states are fast adopting the new system to increase efficiency and transparency,” he revealed.

According to Eng Kapongo, the new system will promote efficiency, transparency and minimize potential collusion among bidders in public procurement as the web-based system supports full public procurement lifecycle by replacing the current manual process of procurement used within public institutions such as ministries, departments, agencies and local governments.