Government's ePerolehan project on track

THE eprocurement system of the public sector, ePerolehan, has registered some 30,000 government suppliers thus far, and the exercise to sign up the remaining 5,000 or so suppliers is expected to be completed by the end of the year. Commerce Dot Com, the main contractor of the project, announced that is has also launched the direct purchase module of the system, and that the tender/quotation module will be rolled out later this year. The latter, together with the registration exercise, will conclude the second phase of the three-phase ePerolehan project.

Once registered, a supplier will be able to conduct ecommerce with government agencies, either through the web at www.eperolehan.com.my, or through an ePerolehan Service Point. "We are in the process of establishing more ePerolehan Service Points to support users, especially those in remote parts of the country," said Dato' Mohd Salleh Masduki, chief executive of Commerce Dot Com.

"These Service Points cater to low volume users who cannot afford to invest in the hardware to connect to ePerolehan. Here, we provide not just the tools to access ePerolehan but guidance to the less ICT-savvy government suppliers," he added. Presently, there are nine of such Service Points scattered throughout the Klang Valley.

The direct purchase module just launched will enable government buyers to deal directly with commercial suppliers when making small purchases, typically those valued at below RM100,000. The tender/quotation module to be launched later will facilitate making high cost purchases.

Zaharin Ali, Commerce Dot Com vice president of business operations, said pilot tests proved that ePerolehan helps to speed up the turnaround time for government purchases and payments, reduce the number of backlog applications and eliminate incidence of missing application forms.

ePerolehan is one of the flagship applications under the eGovernment component of the Multimedia Super Corridor initiative. Started in 1999, the project is being implemented on a "build, operate and transfer" basis by Commerce Dot Com in conjunction with the Ministry of Finance.

Made of up three phases to be stretched over eight years, phase one of ePerolehan saw the development of the supplier registration module and the central contracts module, which is the interface system to be installed at all government purchasing centres called "Pusat Tanggungjawab" or PTJ.

Phase three will see the nationwide rollout of ePerolehan, involving the establishment of PTJ all over the country, development of the payment module, setting up Service Points and the extension of the eprocurement system to overseas suppliers.