The Director of Information and Communication Technology at Tanzania’s Public Procurement Regulatory Authority, Michael Moshiro has revealed that the new e-procurement system developed by the Tanzania government, NeST will comply with the Open Contracting Data Standard(OCDS).
Moshiro revealed this today, August 06, 2024, during the first day of the ITAC conference at the Gran Melia Hotel in Arusha. The two day conference is organized by the public accountability think tank, Wajibu Institute of Public Accountability focusing on fostering effective public procurement systems in Tanzania.
Tanzania migrated to NeST in July 2023 last year, this is after the country has been using the World Bank-supported e-procurement system, TANEPS which was owned and developed by European Dynamics.
“We took the OCDS format and made sure all the required data are available in the system, at the moment the remaining process is the publication of this data, I expect this to be done by September,” said Moshiro.
The Open Contracting Data Standard (OCDS) is a free, non-proprietary open data standard for public contracting that is based on three concepts, first open contracting means that the contracting process is made open and transparent from advertisement to contract management. Open data, meaning data is provided in a machine-readable format that can be utilized, and third data is published in a structured way to avoid ambiguity.
Moshiro explains that PPRA is yet to start publishing of the data because they are finalizing development.NeST covers the complete procurement cycle through six modules including e-Registration, e-Tendering, e-Contract, e-Catalogue, e-Auction, and e-Payment.
Moshiro explained that the first phase of the system which includes e-registration and tendering is currently complete, this includes preparation of annual procurement, tender initiation, online tender documentation, clarification, evaluation, post qualification, tender negation, and tender award.
The second phase which is the contract management is currently under testing and integration. The system has so far processed 36 awarded contracts, through about 831 registered procuring entities valued at Tsh. 5.99 Trillion, this is in the financial year 2023/2024.
