Govt to establish e-procurement to curb corruption

Government has proposed automation of procurement procedures, a move that will enhance the efforts to curb corruption in the country. The system will allow all procurement procedures be monitored at the central server and records will be monitored on a daily basis. “Days are gone when we used to seat and be told we lost billions because the system will have a daily reconciliation, reverse transaction and stop cashed checks,” said David Kanamugire Director of ICT in the President’s office recently. The structure’s objective is to increase efficiency and foster integrity in the procurement procedures. With the new system, an alarm will be set to alert on any violated rules and regulations in the process. The breach shall be transmitted to the people responsible and who would take an action. It’s said that Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning and CID shall be responsible to follow up on failures. Once the system goes electronic, there will be no more excuses of lost records or false information that fueled corruption. It will be history to manipulate service related information and losing records to control checks and balances. Many people will have access to the same information and rise questions on any thing including, awarding tenders and the bidding process. The system however, has not taken shape as it requires a lots of things before its implemented. One major requirement is the e-procurement law, e-bidding which would see the whole system being electronic. According to Kanamugire, the system will not only fight corruption but also build the right structure to improve transparency. It is said that Procurement is considered a sensitive function, with all related information tightly controlled and closely guarded by government departments, resulting in a severe lack of transparency in the entire process. This lack of transparency leads to misinformation and a lack of trust in the system. Kanamugire noted that, government is building a mechanism of getting policies, infrastructure model that allows Rwandans to have accurate records. Government has different proposals to be considered in designing the project. Information available indicates that, proposals available include e-procurement from India and Singapore. Kanamugire said that electronic services eliminate middle men and reduce physical interaction which would lead to unnecessary delays in service delivery. Ends

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Govt to establish e-procurement to curb corruption