MUSCAT -- The Sultanate's e-government initiative made headway yesterday with the signing of an agreement worth RO 2.1 million to roll out an online tendering system covering 55 government institutions. Dr Khamis bin Mubarak al Alawi, Minister of Transport and Communications and Chairman of Tender Board, initialled the contract on behalf of the government, in the presence of Mohammed bin Nasser al Khusaibi, Secretary-General of the Ministry of National Economy and Chairman of Information Technology Authority (ITA), while Fareed al Hinai, Vice-Chairman of Imtac and Vivek Agarwal, Chief Executive Officer of C1 India, signed on behalf of the company implementing the project.
Present also at the signing ceremony were Anil Wadhwa, Indian Ambassador to the Sultanate, Syed Mahmood bin Hilal bin Sood, Under-Secretary of Tender Board, Shaikh Al Fadhel bin Mohammed al Harthy, Vice- Chairman of ITA, and a number of ITA and Tender Board officials. Notably, the project, which will become totally functional in 18 months, assumes significance as it is the first in the Middle East region to adopt online tendering at the national-level, incorporating all government entities.
The E-tendering system will fully automate the tendering and company registration processes which will be available online via the Tender Board website. The new system will improve transparency of the tendering process as well as facilitate easy participation of registered companies from around the world. "The project reflects periodic enhancements of the tendering processes and utilises IT to ensure enhanced efficiency in implementing government projects," Dr Khamis al Alawi said.
"Formulated in co-operation with the Information Technology Authority (ITA), the project will enhance the automated system of Tender Board and develop a new electronic tendering system. The project mainly aims to automate all manual processes required during the tendering stages and train Tender Board staff and IT professionals to ensure effective use, management and efficient monitoring of the E-tendering system," remarked Syed Mahmood bin Hilal bin Sood. Mohammed bin Nasser al Khusaibi said: "Automating the tender processes is considered as the fundamental building block of E-tendering, fully utilising E-procurement as part of the e-services which ITA is planning to develop in co-ordination with various government entities."
Mohammed al Dhuhli, Project Manager at ITA, said: "E-tendering will enable all local and international vendors to use the online system to register and renew registration with the Tender Board, prepare, review and approve the final tender documents online, publish tenders online, purchase tender documents online, receive and reply to queries online, send addenda/circulars to participating companies online, receive offers online, publish prices online, award projects online and pay all required fees online. The new system will interface with other government systems to ensure transfer of required data for e-tendering so that no further hard copy documents will be required."
He further added: "In the first phase, which is planned to be completed in nine months, the project will automate all tendering processes of the Tender Board and five government entities. The other 50 entities will join the system in phase II. The selected E-tendering system can be used by all government entities irrespective of whether they are following the Tender Board laws and regulations as the system can be customised to include any number of entities."
"We are extremely pleased with the award of this project to our consortium of Imtac and C1 India. Imtac has been at the forefront of providing leading edge technology solutions to customers in Oman as well as in the region. I am confident that e-procurement would bring in significant benefits by way of cost and time savings to Tender Board and ministries. This automated, easy to use and Internet based portal will also encourage the local upcoming entrepreneurs to participate with equal opportunities to bid for government contracts," said. Fareed al Hinai.
"We are proud to be associated with the Tender Board to implement this prestigious project. This is the first project of its kind in the Middle East region wherein E-procurement is being adopted at the national level by all government departments, led by the Tender Board. This project will become the reference point and a role model for all such initiatives in the region. The Tender Board followed a very rigorous evaluation process for selecting the product from among all the best-known players in the world," Vivek Agarwal said.
By Ebby Chacko George
© Oman Daily Observer 2008
