‘We are committed to ensuring the welfare of the citizens of this country, and therefore, our activities, however small or big, should reflect that dedication in serving the people,’ said A.H.M Mustafa Kamal FCA, Honorable Minister, Ministry of Planning and Chairperson of Public Private Stakeholders Stakeholders Committee (PPSC) in its 10th meeting on August 28, 2016 in the NEC Conference room, Planning Commission, Sher-E-Bangla Nagar of the capital. He further added that all project related documents will be in Bangla going forward, with English translations available in case foreign individuals are involved in any project. The meeting was organized by the BRAC Institute of Governance and Development (BIGD) of BRAC University and hosted by the Central Procurement Technical Unit (CPTU).
Architect Jalal Ahmed of the IEB; Mustafa Jabbar, BASIS; Rezwanul Alam, TIB; Towfiqul Islam Khan, CPD; Anwara Begum, BIDS; Syful Kabir, IBA, and Dr. Tapash Kumar Biswas, PKSF, were other PPSC members who attended the meeting. Dr. Zafrul Islam, Lead Procurement Specialist, World Bank and the core BIGD team of the Social Accountability Component of PPRP II were present during the meeting. Among others, the meeting was attended by other members of the PPSC, which included high officials from LGD, LGED, ERD, PWD, BPDB.
Anwara Begum of BIDS, suggested that women be encouraged to take part in project monitoring. Dr. Zafrul Islam encouraged the use of social media for better monitoring of project activities. Syful Kabir, IBA, suggested the formation of a central monitoring committee on top of local Citizen Committees. Mr. Nasiruddin Khan of ERD, expressed his belief that citizen engagement can bring about greater transparency and accountability. Before the open discussion, Dr. Mirza Hassan presented briefly on the progress of the pilot and shared important findings from the field.
PPSC is formed under the auspices of the Public Procurement Reform Project-II (PPRP-II) with representatives from the business community, think tanks, and civil society organizations along with senior government officials, to institutionalize external monitoring and citizen engagement in different stages of public procurement. The committee was reconstituted recently, increasing the number of PPSC members from 27 to 43, to engage in high-level policy dialogue which will contribute to development of strategic goals regarding procurement reform at field level and generate discussions at different national and regional forums.
BIGD is providing the technical assistance to the CPTU, IMED to help design and implement the social accountability mechanism that aims to institutionalize and develop a third party monitoring system in the public procurement process in the country. Md. Faruque Hossain, Director General, CPTU, moderated the meeting.