The Jamaican Government launched its nationwide e-Procurement system on July 31st according to the reports of the Jamaican Observer. Ministry of Finance and Planning has implemented this platform under the theme “Faster, Easier and More Efficient Way of Doing Business”.

It is estimated that the Government of Jamaica would be able to decrease its spending on procurement process by about 30%. The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) had approved US$ 900,000 to finance the development of this e-Procurement system. Also the Jamaican government has set aside $ 51 Million for the project. Jamaican Authorities firmly believe that the e-Procurement platform would lead to significant savings by promoting the competition between suppliers and reducing the costs involved. Apart from the savings in cost of the procurement process, other benefits of the online procurement portal would include reduced face-to-face interactions, speedy grievance redressal and a simplified process flow.

Realizing the necessity of online procurement platform for procurement requirements of the government, many countries have opted for e-Procurement in recent years. Earlier in July, Government of Zambia also launched an online procurement platform through the Zambia Public Procurement Authority. The e-Procurement solution helped Government of Zambia in reaching out to vendors from across the world, as the online platform has diminished geographical barriers. It has led to great transparency which lacked in the manual procurement process.

African countries such as Kenya and Tanzania have also implemented e-Procurement portals recently. The Kenyan Government realized that it was being overcharged for the goods and services that it purchased and thus the government invested in the development of e-Procurement platform.

There have been a lot of disadvantages of the manual process of procurement. Cartel formation, bid rigging, delay in process and undue spending have bothered governments across the world. Online procurement is proving to be extremely helpful. It has the potential of eradicating the shortcomings of procurement process.

C1 India has implemented many e-Procurement projects for Governments and their enterprises. We developed an outstanding online procurement platform for the Tender Board of the Sultanate of Oman. It was the first nationwide project of its kind in the Middle East. It proved to be extremely successful and has won C1 India several accolades. This project bagged “Best e-Governance Implementation Award” in 2012 competing with countries from the entire GCC region. With the help of this platform all of the 55 ministries of Sultanate of Oman are able to float their tenders in an integrated and seamless manner.