KAMPALA —The Public Procurement Disposal of Assets (PPDA) has finalized the establishment of the Contract Management System to allow citizens fully access information concerning government contracts and infrastructure development.
The development was revealed by PPDA Executive Director Mr. Benson Turamye during an antigraft Civil Society Organizations and government agencies breakfast meeting held at Fairway Hotel in Kampala.
He said the system will go live in January 2022 and urged the members of the public to hold their leaders accountable especially at the local government level.
“The money used for Government projects is tax payer’s money, so citizens need to benefit from their money by demanding for accountability,” he said, adding that “This is where we want again to involve the citizens, the civil society organisations in terms of contract monitoring and where do we start, we start by availing contract documents because you cannot start monitoring the contract without knowing what is within this contract.
“We want the citizens to raise up because these contracts and services they are the ultimate beneficiaries, this attitude of saying these are Government projects should cease and stop today”, he added.
In July this year, PPDA also rolled out the Electronic Government Procurement System, also known as the eGP, a web-based tool used to carry out public procurement and disposal.
The system uses information and communication technology (ICT) to conduct the end-to-end government procurement and disposal process online.
It involves all stages right from procurement planning, bidding, evaluation, award, contract management, invoicing, and payment for supplies, works and services.
The system aims at reducing physical interface between the bidders and government officials thus closing out one of the avenues of malpractices in public procurement.
Turamye said the transparency and openness associated with the e-GP will lead to increased promotion of domestic businesses and chances for hitherto marginalized groups like women and SMEs to participate in government business.
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