PUBLIC procurement is essential for governments to convert budget funds into public services and infrastructure. In Bangladesh, where public procurement constitutes a large share of government expenditure, inefficiency, politicisation, and institutional weakness often result in cost overruns, project delays, and corruption risks鈥攗ltimately eroding public trust and diminishing value for money. Effective reform requires a comprehensive approach outlined below.听
Modernise the system: The country already has a legal framework (Public Procurement Act, 2006, and Public Procurement Rules, 2008, with amendments) and an e-Government Procurement (e-GP) portal. The next step is to implement an ongoing programme that consolidates, simplifies, and digitalises the entire procurement process, from planning and advertising to contract management and payment, within a second-generation e-GP. This e-GP will include contract management, geo-tagging, electronic payments, and open data application programming interfaces.
A mature e-GP reduces discretion, increases competitive access, and creates auditable trails that prevent rent-seeking and speed up transactions. Continued efforts to make e-GP easier for small suppliers, publish procurement data in machine-readable formats, and include contract performance dashboards will turn transparency into accountability.
Deactivating politicisation: A common source of distortion is arbitrary political interference, which can range from directly awarding contracts to pressuring procurement officials. Practical countermeasures include:
Requiring multi-year procurement plans linked to multi-year budgets that align with policy priorities rather than short-term influences. Mandating competitive procurement for all but strictly defined emergency procurements, with clear, limited exceptions and mandatory retrospective disclosures when exceptions are used.
Strengthen an independent review and appeal process with legal protections for panel members and staff to guarantee procurement disputes are resolved based on merit rather than influence.
Auditors, anti-corruption agencies, and the procurement authority must be legally protected from political influence and funding shortages; otherwise, rules become ineffective. Electronic systems, combined with independent review, significantly reduce opportunities for political favouritism when properly implemented.
Strengthen institutional capacity: Create a nationwide procurement certification and ongoing professional development programme for procurement officers, including modules on value-for-money analysis, writing specifications, evaluation, contract management, and ethics. Establish regional centres of excellence that offer on-demand legal, technical, and procurement advisory support to smaller agencies.
Introduce career paths and performance incentives for procurement professionals that are tied to outcomes such as timely contract completion, procurement savings, and supplier performance. This approach helps lower turnover and reduces exposure to external pressures. Training should be partly funded by modest transaction fees collected through e-GP to ensure sustainability and lessen reliance on development partners.
Strengthen financial controls: Procurement inefficiencies often stem from misaligned financial incentives, such as delayed payments, fragmented budgets, and weak cost estimates, which can cause suppliers to inflate prices or claims. Practical reforms include:
Integrate e-GP with treasury and e-payment systems so that contract awards automatically update payment schedules after verifying milestones. This helps prevent payment delays and reduces additional charges suppliers might impose due to cash-flow risks. Require accurate cost and lifecycle estimates during procurement planning, supported by independent benchmarking units that publish reference prices for common items and work.
Use framework agreements and pre-qualified supplier lists for recurring purchases to lower transaction costs and stabilise markets, while maintaining competition through regular re-qualification. Reports on Bangladesh鈥檚 e-GP emphasise electronic contract management and payments as important future priorities.
Promote transparency: publicly available procurement data encourages civil society and media oversight. Along with legal protections for whistleblowers and proactive disclosure of tender evaluations, this builds social accountability. At the same time, strengthen supplier capacity, especially for SMEs, by simplifying bidding documents, offering pre-bid briefing sessions through the e-GP platform, and providing standardised contract templates. A balanced approach sustains competition while increasing participation from domestic firms and maximising value for money.
Tactical anti-corruption measures: Require the electronic publication of tender notices, bid submissions (redacting commercially sensitive information as needed), bid evaluation reports, and contract awards. Implement automated red-flag analytics, such as comparing received bids to expected ones, identifying repeated single-bidder outcomes, and detecting abnormal bid spreads within e-GP to trigger automatic reviews. Use geotagging and periodic independent physical inspections of infrastructure projects to identify ghost projects and fund diversion. Conduct external audits promptly and publicly share their findings until corrective actions are completed.
Political economy: Gain support by starting with reforms that are easy to implement and politically acceptable, yet have a significant impact, as procurement reform challenges entrenched rents. Introduce e-GP features that reduce administrative burdens, such as online tendering and e-payments. Show total savings on public dashboards and offer capacity-building support for procurement entities. Frame these changes as ways to improve efficiency and service delivery rather than as punishments.
Meanwhile, negotiate protections for a stronger procurement authority and an independent review process as part of a reform 鈥榩ackage鈥� linked to donor or budget support. Development partners can assist with technical design and conditional financing, but domestic ownership remains essential for sustainability.
Measurable targets and adaptive governance: Successful reform depends on both being measurable and being adaptable. Set clear performance goals (eg, percentage of procurements through e-GP, average procurement lead time, share of competitive awards, on-time payment rate), publish them, and review progress annually. Combine digitisation with institutional safeguards, professional development, financial integration, and public oversight, timed to overcome political resistance. Bangladesh can then turn procurement from a cost centre into a strategic tool for growth and public trust.
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Dr Nasim Ahmed is an associate professor at the Bangladesh Institute of Governance and Management (affiliated with the University of Dhaka).
