The Philippine Government Electronic Procurement System (PhilGEPS) called on the private sector to participate in biddings for government procurement deals after upgrading its portal.
PhilGEPS Executive Director Rosa Clemente said over the weekend that the government is now upgrading the procurement system. Clemente said this is expected to increase not only the number of users but also improve the quality of auctioned goods or services due to competition.
“Our objectives are to upgrade technology and add functionalities,” she told the BusinessMirror in an interview on the sidelines of a forum, titled “The Future of Philippine Procurement System”, held at the AIM Conference Center Manila in Makati City last Friday.
PhilGEPS is the single, centralized electronic portal that serves as the primary and definitive source of information on government procurement. State agencies, as well as suppliers, contractors, manufacturers, distributors and consultants, are mandated under Republic Act 9184, or the Government Procurement Reform Act, to register and use the system in procuring goods, civil works and consulting services.
Through the use of the PhilGEPS, transparency in government procurement is improved, since opportunities to trade with the government and the ensuing transactions are provided online.
Currently, there are around 45,000 government agencies, 21,000 barangays and 154,192 merchants registered in the PhilGEPS system.
Since January to August of this year, a total of 495,842 bid notices, costing about P1 trillion, has been posted on its portal, or approximately 1,000 on a daily basis.
“So, hopefully, with our modernization, we can reach the 200,000 [number of listed merchants] maybe in two years’ time,” he cited. “Also, we can accommodate at least 2,000 bid notices.”
While they have already covered almost all state agencies, Clemente revealed their goal to enlist another half of the 42,000 barangays nationwide.
The PhilGEPS first upgraded the government procurement system in 2000. This was followed in 2006.
“This March we upgraded, but not totally, to make it fast and future-proof, as well as accommodate more users because we need to make onboard the civil society to observe the bidding through the system, since we have electronic bidding to add additional functionalities in the system,” she said.
Virtual store
AS part of this modernization program, PhilGEPS is set to launch a virtual store by October of this year, which is portal for the procurement service.
“With this facility, the common used goods will be available to the government agencies. When they go online, they can just do it just like buying from Lazada, Amazon or Shopee. Now, we tied it to the annual procurement plan for common supplies so that the procurement service will be able also to provide the correct demand so that we will not go out of stock with the common used goods,” Clemente said.
Also included in the first phase of the project is the pilot of online catalogue for merchants that the procuring entities may use for market research, and later on, if the policies will have to be revised and reviewed, will allow for electronic shopping and electronic small value.
“So the agencies can readily avail [themselves] of the goods through this online catalogue and the merchants can upload this, provided that they are a platinum member,” she said, adding that the initiative could kick off either in November or December of this year.
The second phase of the modernized system will be the electronic bidding, which is scheduled to roll out in March 2019. The third and last phase of the modernization program is contract management, which would kick off by July of next year.
“We can have an end-to-end facility for the government to provide their information, as well as for the merchants to know the opportunities,” Clemente said.
These undertakings, according to her, will enable them to capture what was planned as against what was actually procured.
The upgraded system will be linked also to the budget treasury and management system in order for the merchants to be paid online, as well, she added.
“In some government agencies, there are different financial management systems,” Clemente noted. “Because of that, a problem arises with regards to payment, which I think becomes a big factor why the suppliers or the merchants are not participating in government bids.”
For the next few months, PhilGEPS will announce the availability of these new functionalities.
“I hope all of the private companies can participate in government biddings and government agencies—with these innovations—will be able to realize that procurement is not very hard to do. The harder process is the planning as well as the contract management,” she stressed.