By Ibrahim Karim Bangura (Tanko)

In bid to control financial leakages and loopholes in government Ministries, Department and Agencies in the country, on Thursday 25th September, 2024, the National Public Procurement Authority (NPPA) launched its stakeholders meeting on Electronic-Government procurement implementation at the Western District Woman’s Fellowship Mulit-purpose Hall, Richmond Grounds, at Kingharman Road, Brookfields in Freetown.

In his statement, the Chief Executive Officer, Fodie J. Konneh said the session aims to engage stakeholders on having comprehensive discussions planning the next steps for the implementation of the e-GP platform, thus ensuring alignment with national procurement goals while fostering transparency and efficiency in public procurement process. Adding that the e-GP implementation strategy highly includes private business and government institutions process reengineering to do a (BPR) policy frameworks. He emphasized on the legality of documents and fundamentals in ensuring successful the adoption and sustainability of the e-GP system.

“Your inputs as experts are invaluable to this process especially civil society and journalists in spreading the message countrywide.”

“We have a lot of positive gains and the first phase of our campaign will be covered in Freetown, Bo and Makeni,” he said.

Alie Badara Sheriff, Director of Monitoring and Evaluation said the e-GP system will deeply modernize public procurement in Sierra Leone, noting that the system would ensure transparency, efficiency and enhance security.

He said the commitment to successful implementation and continuous improvements depend on central government support, a roll-out approach, motivation down by phases including key functionalities like the e-tendering and vendor registration.

“Phase two introduces contract management and request for proposal (REP) functionalities; pilot agencies will focus on 5-10 selected agencies for phase one rollout.

The e-GP system transformation of public procurement in the country will help enhance transparency, improve efficiency and ensure long-term sustainability, he said.

Kadiatu Kamara, from the Youth Development Progress YDP in Freetown, expresses appreciation for a e-GP system to be implemented by NPPA, citing that NPPA should man the system for fear of internet hackers globally nowadays.

“We are calling on NPPA to move the campaign at chiefdom levels because Freetown is not Sierra Leone, the campaign should be taken down to communities in our local languages across the country, she said.

According to journalists present at the program, they said, NPPA should ask MDAs and business partners to do advert  with Newspapers, Radio and TVs stations for credibility of their operations, transparency and accountability to the public whom they serve as public institutions.

Journalists said in spite of digital transformation in the country, MDAs should make it a habit to give adverts to newspapers for a win-win-situation between the print media and government agencies.