Procurement office moves to e-reforms

THE National Procurement Commission (NPC) is now modernising its system by moving into e-procurement, coordinator training, marketing and compliance and audit coordinator Hudson Leka says.
Leka said this was part of the procurement reforms that were currently underway at the NPC.
“These reforms are not to restructure the existing supplies and tenders but to create a new procurement arrangement,” he said.
Leka said the creation of the NPC had seen the abolishment of the central supply tenders board along with provincial and district supply tenders boards and other specialised procurement boars.
“Any boards that are still running are illegal.”
He said all procurements between K500,000 and K10 million were under the NPC and could be handled by provincial and district committees.
“Anything above K10 million goes to National Executive Council for approval,” Leka said.
According to Leka the provincial procurement committee could preside over tenders up to K5 million while anything above that would need NPC approval; district procurement committees could handle tenders up to K2.5 million and specialised boards could handle tenders of up to K1 million.
He said procurements were awarded on demonstrable agency procurement capacity certification.
“When we see that departments or agencies, provinces or districts don’t have the capacity we remove that. If we see they have capacity we certify them.”
“We are modernizing the procurement system in PNG and we are moving into e-procurement for all state projects.”
Leka said the National Procurement Act 2018 was comprehensive and would be monitored by the Authority to Pre-Commit (APC) committee.
“National Procurement Act creates the new NPC and outlines the system of procurement including standards and thresholds. Only registered and approved suppliers can now supply to the state.”