Ministry of Finance: Government Purchases Represent 80% of Budget

Khartoum - The Federal Ministry of Finance and National Economy in  ollaboration with the Public and Decentralized Service and Capacity Building Reform Project in addition to the Donors Fund have organized a workshop yesterday on how to use model tender notebooks and governmental purchase guide.
Director of Purchases, Contracting, and Surplus Selling Division Abdulhalim Alsayed Alamin said that governmental purchase operations –according to statistics- constitute in average 80% of government budgets in most countries, explaining that this is one of the agendas to which special care and great attention must be dedicated to ensure the required level of integrity, justice, and transparency.
He said countries prepare laws and regulations and refine procedures to realize these goals to prevent personal interpretation, corruption, and deviation in implementation. That came upon addressing inaugurating the training course on model tender notebooks and governmental purchases guide in the hall of the Ministry of Education.
Abdulhalim indicated that laws must be the bar controlling the implementation of these operations to ensure enough flexibility in accommodating developments and cope with the improvements which occur in the implementation means and
techniques, explaining that necessities mandated improving practices in the field of purchasing, controlling general financial spending, and drafting a comprehensive law to regulate purchasing, contracting, and surplus selling operations.
The efforts of the purchases division resulted in issuing the purchasing,  ontracting, and surplus selling law in 2010, and its interpretation regulation in 2011 and subsequently all government purchases became controlled by that law. He explained that most countries and international organizations have standard directives whose implementation ensures high levels of competitiveness, equal opportunities, and transparency.
He disclosed that the Ministry of Finance and National Economy, represented in the general division of purchases, contracting, and surplus selling, in collaboration with the Public and Decentralized Service Reform and Capacity
Building Project have taken practical steps to prepare and issue model tender notebooks which will be standardized framework for implementing the
purchasing and documentation of governmental purchases according to the international standards in this field.
He said it is very necessary to cope with the international fast-paced developments in this field and apply the latest of them in electronic purchasing policies, declaring that an independent chapter has been added to the governmental purchasing guide that deals with electronic purchasing. He revealed that they have started communications with Malaysia which promised to donate a free version of an integrated electronic purchasing operations
system developed and applied now in Malaysia.
He explained that the workshop aims acquainting the participants with the most important aspects of the model purchasing notebooks and governmental
guide to prepare them as trainers of trainers (TOT) who can conduct training courses of trainers in the capital and states.
On his part, Abdallah Albashiri, director of the Public and Decentralized Service and Capacity Building Project clarified that this course is one of the important training courses in the field of controlling spending in the financial aspect of purchasing methods, evaluating tender offers, and operation methods, saying that the Service Reform Project has conducted a number of courses for the Ministry of Finance in general financial performance, budgets, and internal auditing.