The government is working to make easy the conditions of donor agencies or lending countries for ensuring more competition in procurement process and reducing project costs aimed at sustaining the country's development, reports BSS.
To this end, officials concerned mentioned that the government has begun to communicate with lending agencies to reduce their conditions and project costs.
Talking to BSS, Chief Adviser's Special Assistant for the Ministry of Road Transport and Bridge Sheik Moinuddin said that due to conditions of lending countries and agencies, the procurement process has become increasingly monopolised by fund providing country's firms, with systemic limitations built into tender documents.
"The government always follows the Open Tender Method (OTM) to ensure the procurement activities in a fair, transparent, and competitive manner. But, in some foreign funded projects, the concerned countries or agencies include some conditions when they give loans. We are planning to take loans for projects without conditions," he added.
Managing Director of the Dhaka Mass Transit Company Limited Faruque Ahmed said the government is working to ensure competitive environment in the procurement process which drives cost savings, encourages innovation, fosters fairness, and promotes responsible sourcing of goods and services.
"A well-managed competitive tender process encourages suppliers to offer their best prices and quality, while allowing governments to achieve sustainability and social responsibility goals through their purchasing power," he added.
Explaining about the conditions of lending agencies and countries, he mentioned that bidders of some packages under metro rail construction projects bided above the estimated costs due to limited competition.
Referring to a recent tender for package 07 under MRT Line 1, Faruque Ahmed said bidders have affared bids around 27 percent lower than the estimated costs as the authority has ensured competitive environment.
For the package 07, he said that the Pre-qualification (PQ) invitation was issued on 9 March 2023, attracting bids from 11 entities across five countries (Bangladesh, China, Japan, India, and South Korea) by 8 June 2023.
