Advantages of E-Procurement in the System of Public Procurement in BiH
Public procurement in many countries are used as a tool for improving efficiency of the process of products and services procurement as well as a tool for making cost savings in the public sector. In Bosnia and Herzegovina, e-procurement system was established late 2014, but it is still in the early stage of development. On the e-procurement portal in BiH e-announcements about public procurements are available but there is still no conditions to develop further options of the e-procurement portal. These were some of the outputs of the expert debate entitled “E-Procurement in the service of efficient public procurement system in BiH” organized by Center for Social Research Analitika on 28th of April 2016 in Tuzla.
„E-Procurement is not only important segment of the E-governance reform within the EU, but also their development and harmonization level are is monitored and evaluated within the progress report on BiH path to the EU membership. Establishing the portal www.ejn.gov.ba was a founding for the efficient e-procurement system in BiH. Therefor, available options and capacities of the portal should be understood as a starting point of e-procurement“, said Ivan Kutleša, public procurement expert.
Advantages of e-procurement are strengthening transparency, efficiency, healthy competition and provide best values for the invested money. Aim of this expert debate was to point out the main obstacles in the development process of e-procurement in Bosnia and Herzegovina as well as to present possible solutions at this stage of development. At the expert debate recommendations for the improvements of the e-procurement system will be presented which came out as the results of the study written by Analitika Center for Social Research.
„Next stepts of development od the E-procurement portal are delivering offers from tenderers, opening of the recieved offers, evaluation of the offers as well as mobile apps development“, said Dario Kihil, Agency for Public procurement of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Expert debate is organized within the project Open Public Procurement in Bosnia and Herzegovina jointly implemented by the Centre for Investigative Reporting (CIN), Analitika - Centre for Social Research, and the Public Interest Advocacy Centre (CPI). The Project is financed by the European Union.
