QUETTA: The Balochis­tan Public Procurement Reg­u­latory Authority (BPPRA) has embarked upon the launch of an e-procurement system in the province and plans to digitise the procurement of all government departments in order to enhance their performance and efficiency.

“The aim is to make the best use of available resources in the province with the underlying objectives of fairness, transparency, value for money, efficiency and economy for public procurement,” BPPRA Managing Director Mujeeb-ur-Rehman said on Saturday while addressing the participants at a five-day training workshop on e-procurement.

The BPPRA chief said the procuring agencies of the provincial government would be imparted training with the help of World Bank-funded Governance and Policy Project.

Talking about the implementation strategy, the MD said that both upstream and downstream preparations were under way and an amendment to the Act of 2009 had been submitted to the cabinet.

“E-procurement will further enable the Balo­chistan government to make evidence-based decisions and chalk out better policies and strategies by easily evaluating digitised data of procurement both vertically and horizontally across all the departments and procuring agencies over any desired period of time for any technical issues, irregularities, malpractices, overspending or underspending or strategically linking the procurement of trillions of rupees to the enhancement of employment or livelihood or economic growth of the province,” Mr Rehman explained.

“The successful launch of e-procurement will make BPPRA one of the leading regulatory authorities in Pakistan,” he added.

Published in Dawn, November 7th, 2021