With a growing need for government entities to be transparent, accountable and above all efficient, Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) in collaboration with the Public Procurement and Disposal of Public Assets Authority (PPDA) has embraced the electronic Government Procurement (e-GP) system which is expected to be rolled out at the beginning of financial Year FY2019/2020 on July 1, 2019.
Speaking at the 6th CAA Providers Workshop that was held in Entebbe on Friday under the theme: Embracing Technology. From Paper To Paperless Procurement, Skills For The Future, Florence Nakyeyune, the Manager e-Government Procurement Project explained that the electronic- Government Procurement system (e-GP) will be used with in all Procurement and Disposing Entities (PDEs) to carry out the entire procurement process and it has been integrated with key government entities and systems like the IFM System for payment, Uganda Revenue Authority (URA) for tax compliance, Uganda Registration Service Bureau (URSB) for verification of registration and National Social Security Fund (NSSF).
The reason is to have real time integration and get real time access to the information and documents that we request for and it will help in guarding out on the inefficiencies/time lags that we spend in getting documents. The fact that 60 percent of Government’s budget is going to public procurement, we need to get rid of the inefficiencies if we are going to get value for money from government of Uganda. The provider of the e-government procurement system has been identified, we have a project implementation team, customization is closing and we are going to move to use acceptance testing, explained Florence Nakyeyune.
She added;
Beginning of financial year FY 2019/2020 on July 1, 2019 we hope and anticipate that we should be using the system. We are going to start with piloting with ten entities which include Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), Public Procurement and Disposal of Public Assets Authority (PPDA), National Information Technology Authority (NITA), National Social Security Fund (NSSF), Ministry Of Water and Environment, Ministry of Finance, Planning and Economic Development, Mpigi District local Government, Jinja District Local Government, Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA) and Uganda National Roads Authority (UNRA). We will pilot with ten for a period of one year and then we shall roll out to the entire government of Uganda. We chose the ten entities because of their level of automation and executive (top management) sponsorship that embraced e-GP and also looked at entities that are within the central Business District (CBD) not more than 10km away.
In his remarks, CAA Managing Director, Dr. David Kakuba Had This To say:
Over the years, CAA has scored several national firsts in implementation of Government programs. The current use of our internal e-procurement system which has provided continuous process improvement in our procurement cycle is one such measure.
The objective of the providers Workshop is to ensure that prequalified and prospective providers are informed about emerging issues of compliance and non-compliance and keep abreast with new areas as we anticipate adoption of the e-Government procurement system.
I am glad that CAA has been selected as one of the ten government entities to pilot the e-government procurement system (e-GP) which is expected to reduce on transaction costs for Government and providers as well as streamline the procurement process. Consideration for CAA as one of the piloting entities for e-GP is a vote of confidence in the services rendered by our procurement and Disposal Unit.
Meanwhile, CAA’s Procurement Plan budgetary allocations grew from Shs69.8Bn in FY2017/18 to UGX 239Bn in FY2018/19 representing a 341 percentage increase.
