Planning Minister MA Mannan on Thursday asked all public procurement entities (PEs) to keep continue the practice of blacklisting errant contractors to establish transparency and accelerate the Annual Development Programme (ADP) implementation.
He said it would not happen from now that a contractor breaching the bidding terms and conditions would go unpunished.
"I strongly support blacklisting errant contractors," MA Mannan said while speaking at the 13th meeting of public-private stakeholders committee (PPSC) held at the National Economic Council (NEC) auditorium.
The PPSC was formed with the representatives from the business community, think-tanks, media and civil society organizations along with government officials to monitor different stages of public procurement aspects.
PEs have debarred some 296 contractors till August 22, 2019 for breaching bidding terms of references under the Public Procurement Act 2006 and Public Procurement Rules 2008 or CFCC (Corruption, Fraudulence, Collusive and Coercion) grounds.
After being blacklisted, the contractors would not be allowed to participate in any bidding under the e-GP (Electronic-Government Procurement) during the blacklist periods.
Currently, there are some 61,772 registered contractors in e-GP (Electronic-Government Procurement) system applied for public procurement across the country under the ADP projects, according to CPTU (Central Procurement and Technical Unit), Implementation, Monitoring and Evaluation Division of the Planning Ministry.
The PPSC initiative is being funded by the World Bank (WB) under the scheme titled “Digitizing Implementation Monitoring and Public Procurement Project (DIMAPPP)”. BRAC Institute of Governance and Development is the consultant of the PPSC.
The planning minister said the DIMAPPP was initiated by the caretaker government in 2008, which the Awami League government continued on the ground of its necessity. He said the project involving $60 million or Tk600 crore was aimed to improve the capacity of the country for appropriate development spending.
The planning minister observed that the bidding or tender documents needed to be simplified by using the Bengali language.
"Language barrier must go. Use of Bengali in tender documents for proper understanding by contractors and to other stakeholders is indispensable. They (tender documents) must be in Bangla (Bengali), " he added,
Implementation, Monitoring and Evaluation Division secretary Abul Mansur Md. Faizullah, ndc said 70-75% projects under the ADP could not be implemented within the original deadlines.
Dr. Kazi Anowarul Hoque, Additional Secretary ( Development Wing), Local Government Division, said that his ministry completed implementation of 29 projects out of 152 last year.
Director General of CPTU and member secretary of PPSC, Md. Ali Noor also spoke at the stakeholders' meeting, among others.
