Govt to purchase up to RM10b supplies online

THE Government will purchase RM8 billion to RM10 billion worth of supplies and services through the Internet, from next year.

This will be done through ePerolehan, an electronic procurement system for government-to-business exchanges.

ePerolehan is an electronic government (e-government) flagship application project developed under the Multimedia Super Corridor initiative.

Commerce Dot Com Sdn Bhd, the concessionaire of ePerolehan, is in the final stages of implementing the system which should be ready for business by the middle of next year.

We will launch the tender and quotation modules before fully implementing ePerolehan, its chief executive officer Datuk Mohd Salleh Masduki told Business Times and Berita Harian.

Awarded to Commerce Dot Com in 1999, ePerolehan is developed, implemented and managed by the company in collaboration with the Finance Ministry. The joint initiative enables the Government and its suppliers to do online transactions.

Mohd Salleh said ePerolehan is currently used for procuring office consumables, furniture and cleaning services.

At present, ePerolehan does not cater to projects such as the construction of roads, bridges and buildings. It will probably handle these in future, he added.

Since the launch of the direct purchase agreement module early this year, government procurement centres only make purchases from suppliers who have displayed their goods and services on ePerolehan.

To do this, suppliers must submit electronic catalogues to ePerolehan. These catalogues are what the end buyer, in this case, the Government, sees when browsing through the different supplies and services to compare offerings and prices.

Mohd Salleh said that some 35,000 government suppliers have registered with ePerolehan, but only 5,000 have installed the necessary equipment to enable them to be connected to ePerolehan.

Suppliers need to fork out RM310 for registration fee, RM220 for two Smart cards and RM150 for a smartcard reader, he said.

He said suppliers are also required to display their verified and approved catalogue of items on the ePerolehan website.

On the Governments side, Mohd Salleh said there are 4,288 procurement agencies participating in ePerolehan.

There are also five banks, led by Malayan Banking Bhd and Affin Bank Bhd, participating in the system, he added.

On November 6, the Finance Ministry issued a circular stating that the Government will procure all its supplies and services through ePerolehan.

This means that suppliers who do not register and use ePerolehan are no longer eligible to bid for government contracts.

Mohd Salleh said the company has invested RM143 million to develop the system. It expects to spend RM250 million by the time its concession period ends in 2007.

We expect to break even by the end of next year, based on the expected volume of transactions, he said, adding that the company will charge 0.8 per cent for every completed transaction made through ePerolehan.