THE National Procurement and Tender Administration Board (NPTAB) have handled over 4000 requests for awards as of November 1, 2016.This is according to NPTAB Chairman, Berkley Wickham who addressed participants Tuesday at the opening of four-day workshop on Chartered Institute of Procurement and Supply (CIPS).

The event is being hosted at the Regency Suites Hotel, Hadfield Street, Georgetown.

Wickham said the public procurement system will be strengthened and upgraded in 2017 as existing legislation will be reviewed to facilitate e-procurement, while the website will be improved to satisfy timely posting of advertisements of procurement opportunities and awards.

E-procurement (electronic procurement) is the business-to-business or business-to-consumer or business-to-Government purchase and sale of supplies, work, and services through the Internet, as well as other information and networking systems, such as electronic data interchange and enterprise resource planning.

“In my opinion we are poised to take procurement out of a long period of stagnation and into a future where electronic Government procurement is the major tool to build a world-class procurement process in Guyana,” the Chairman told the workshop.

Thirty participants drawn from all 10 regions are participating in the level-two certificate procurement training programme.

The programme is financed under the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) Public Procurement Modernisation Programme and Financial Management Technical Assistance Programme for Guyana under the Ministry of Finance.

The training is being facilitated by United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Procurement Specialist, Rodofo Sanjurjo.

Wickham said two similar programmes involving 60 trainees from the public sector will be undertaken in January 2017.

The initiative is aimed at changing the long held perception of a tainted public procurement process.

The NPTAB Chairman said the difficulty of the task was never underestimated, but its success is rooted in achieving transparency, accountability, fairness, integrity and efficiency.

He said the initiative is one component of an overall capacity-building programme.

In February next year, there will be further training in contract compliance and management in a bid to improve transparency and accountability.