Dhaka: Audit officials need to have knowledge on the provisions of public procurement law and rules as proper audit is essential to check anomalies in the process of public procurement. With strong demands for more training on public procurement for audit officials and the introduction of pre-audit in public procurement, these observations dominated a workshop titled ‘Public Procurement, e-GP and e-Audit’ held today at the conference room of the Bangladesh Public Procurement Authority (BPPA).
According to Bangladesh Sangbad Sangstha, BPPA organized the workshop for officials of BCS Audit and Accounts Cadre as part of its efforts to improve overall public procurement management and environment under the Digitizing Implementation Monitoring and Public Procurement Project (DIMAPPP), as stated in a press release. With the inclusion of the electronic Contract Management System (e-CMS), the e-GP introduced by BPPA is now a complete online system.
The system is now more robust as an e-Audit module, Tenderers’ Database, and international tender module have been added to the e-GP System. The e-GP system has also been integrated with iBAS++ and NID. Audit officials observed that e-Audit in e-GP has simplified their tasks as they can conduct audits of public procurement online through the e-GP system, eliminating the need to travel to procuring entities and reducing the reliance on piles of papers for conducting their audits.
Mirza Ashfaqur Rahman, Chief Executive Officer of BPPA, presided over the workshop. Nurul Islam, Director General of the Foreign Aided Project Audit Directorate (FAPAD), was present as the chief guest, while Mohammed Shoheler Rahman Chowdhury, former CEO of BPPA, was the special guest. Nazmul Islam Bhuiyan, Team Leader, Enhancement of Operation and Maintenance of e-GP System, Dohatec New Media, made a detailed and comprehensive presentation on the aspects of e-Audit and its implementation progress.
The BPPA CEO also made another presentation highlighting the legal aspects of public procurement where audit is essential and where audit personnel often face misunderstandings while carrying out audits on public procurement. About 30 officials of the BCS Audit and Accounts Cadre attended the workshop, along with BPPA officials. The Bangladesh Center for Communication Programs (BCCP) managed the workshop as a communication consultant for BPPA.
The BPPA CEO emphasized the significant role auditors play in protecting public funds, stating that BPPA has been working towards ensuring transparency and accountability in public procurement, where audit officials can greatly contribute to achieving this target. He detailed the initiatives that BPPA (formerly CPTU) has undertaken to advance public procurement and expressed the goal of conducting 90 percent of public procurement through e-GP in the next five years.
Nurul Islam, DG of FAPAD, underscored the importance of arranging more training sessions on public procurement to prevent the misappropriation of public funds, benefiting the country in the long run. He asserted that without well-educated auditors, BPPA cannot achieve transparency and accountability in procurement. Emphasizing the need for training audit officials, the former CEO of the BPPA urged the office of the CAG to provide BPPA with an extensive list of auditor officials, which would help audit officials better understand public procurement, e-GP, and e-Audit.