The Public Procurement Agency of Bosnia and Herzegovina, with the support of USAID’s E-Government Project in BiH, presented digital innovations in public procurement today in Sarajevo.
The emphasis, as pointed out, is on information systems for conducting centralized public procurements that will contribute to better control and monitoring of public procurement procedures.
According to the director of the BiH Public Procurement Agency, Tarik Rahić, this is a revolutionary step towards transparency and control of public procurement procedures, prevention of misuses and the fight against corruption in the field of public procurement.
“I especially emphasize the opening of data on public procurement in a machine-readable format, which will now be available to everyone who is interested in monitoring and analyzing the expenditure of public funds from contracting authorities throughout Bosnia and Herzegovina. We are also pleased to talk about the launch of the electronic audit system, which will enable the audit offices of all levels of government in BiH to comprehensively supervise and monitor the work of contracting authorities, through the portal for electronic public procurement of BiH,” said Rahić.
He added that he wants to encourage the establishment of central procurement authorities that will enable the authorities at all levels in Bosnia and Herzegovina to efficiently and economically procure goods, works and services and thereby contribute to achieving better prices. The BiH Public Procurement Agency, with the support of the US government and USAID, as he added, did a lot to create all the prerequisites for the efficient work of those bodies.
The Ambassador of the United States of America to BiH, Michael Murphy, acknowledged the exceptional commitment and progress that the Public Procurement Agency of BiH has achieved by introducing digital solutions that reform the sector worth about 3.3 billion KM annually.
“The US government is cooperating with Director Rahić and his team at the Agency to advance digitization in public procurement, including the new electronic centralized public procurement system that we are presenting today,” said Murphy.
That system and many other digital tools they are working on together, he added, will increase efficiency, transparency and accountability in the public procurement process, protect taxpayers’ money and fight corruption.
“My government calls on all government institutions in BiH to follow this example and embrace the digital age in order to lead this country into a new era of better and citizen-friendly public administration. The US government is and will continue to be the leader of this digital transformation when it comes to public administration, business and services to citizens,” emphasized Murphy.
