Govt. to host SAARC meeting on public procurement

The Ministry of Finance on behalf of the Government of Sri Lanka will be hosting the Fourth South Asia Region Public Procurement Conference (SARPPC) under the Theme “Electronic Government Procurement (e-GP) in South Asia: Achievements, Opportunities and Challenges” in Colombo and Kandy from February 20 to 23.

President Maithripala Sirisena, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe and Minister of Finance, Ravi Karunanayake are among the top level local and foreign speakers at the conference, the ministry said in an announcement.

This annual learning, knowledge and experience sharing event is organised under the auspices of the South Asia Region Public Procurement Network (SARPPN) which comprises senior public procurement officials from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. The World Bank, Asian Development Bank, and Islamic Development Bank are co-sponsoring the conference.

“Many countries in the region have progressed significantly in terms of Public Financial Management Reforms in general and Procurement reforms in particular. Sri Lanka is also in the process of number of governance reforms. Public Financial Management Bill, Right to Information Law, Financial Sector Reforms, Procurement Reforms and PPP Regulations are name to few. In view of these reform initiatives SAR conference would provide invaluable opportunity for the country to strengthen its governance framework with best practices used in developed countries,” the announcement said.

The theme of the Fourth Conference is of strategic importance to the South Asian countries as they are at different stages of introduction and operationalization of electronic procurement. E-GP makes public procurement more strategic and serves as an effective innovation to institute procurement reforms with boosted performance in terms of efficiency, transparency, competition, fairness and value for money.

The ministry said the conference provides the participants with an opportunity to learn from one another and from experienced procurement experts from countries with well-functioning public procurement systems especially in the latest developments in public procurement including among others, innovative public procurement tools. It will also provide an opportunity to interact with the development partners and experts about the latest development in the electronic public procurement, performance measurement and capacity building. As Ministry of Finance working with the World Bank to develop e-GP system this conference would be immense use as the country is in the process of transforming into more responsible and transparent government.