Luanda — The strengthening of public procurement procedures is an 'unavoidable' commitment of the Angolan government, with a view to making the public procurement process more transparent, fair, efficient, economical and competitive in the country.
The assurance was given on Wednesday in Luanda by the Secretary of State for Budget and Public Investment, Juciene de Sousa, during the workshop to disseminate the results on 'Evaluation of Angola's public procurement system'.
On the occasion, she highlighted that the initiative, which also aims to adapt the national Public Procurement standard to that practiced in international markets, will improve the quality of expenditure, avoiding waste.
She defended the need to permanently improve public procurement systems and update legislation related to this matter, with the definition of good evaluation strategies for the systems in place being equally important.
The Secretary of State reinforced that Electronic Contracting, developed since 2018, has benefited from adjustments to the platform, being a reality with tangible and increasingly significant gains for the treasury.
Juciene de Sousa recalled that, in 2023, Electronic Contracting allowed savings of 47% of the initially projected expenditure, amounting to 15.68 billion kwanzas, compared to the 11.88 billion kwanzas (23%) saved in 2022.
With this satisfactory result, she considered, the use of Electronic Procurement must increasingly be the preferred route for concluding public contracts.
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She also mentioned that, at the current stage of development of the National Public Procurement System, it is justified to draw up a Strategic Plan that can define the objectives of Angolan public procurement.
In this way, he continued, in the 2023-2027 quadrennium, the Government is committed to addressing the insufficiencies and non-conformities detected during the evaluation of the Public Financial Management Systems (PEFA), Public Investment Management Assessment (PIMA) and the Purchasing System Public (MAPS), 2019, 2021 and 2023, respectively.
According to the Secretary of State, for the effective implementation of the recommendations, it is unavoidable that the SNCP acts with strong political sponsorship and a high level of involvement from the highest bodies of the Public Contracting Entities, making it possible to effectively hold offenders accountable. HM/QCB/DOJ
