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Panaji: Though Goa government has adopted e-tendering process improving transparency and effiency in procurement process across all departments, the CAG report tabled on the floor of the House on Friday has pointed out major loopholes in its implementation.
The Comptroller Auditor General (CAG) report for the fiscal 2017-18 which was tabled on the floor of the House on Friday during budget session of the assembly has said that despite e-tendering process in place, many activities were held manually, defeating its purpose.
Chief Minsiter Pramod Sawant tabled CAG report on the last day of the session, which was ealier approved by state cabinet.
“Government of Goa implemented an e-tendering solution named TenderWizard with the objective of improving transparency and efficiency in procurement process across all departments, offices, autonomous bodies, and Public Sector companies/cooperations in the state,” the CAG report reads.
“The performance audit on implementation of e-tendering was conducted for five year period from 2013-14 to 2017-18,” the report mentions.
The audit has pointed out that the implementation of the TenderWizard was not supported by adequate training and awareness amongst users and many relied on help desk staff of the private technolog partner for tendering activities.
“The role and responsibility of Information Technology Goa (ITG) as the implementing agency was not spelt out. As key modules were not implemented, many activities were performed manually thereby delaying finalisation or opening of tenders, awarding of contracts and refund of earnest money deposit,” the CAG has said.
The auditors have said “the manual interventions in releasing tender documents to bidders after receipt of tender form fees and the users’ reliance on help desk for opening bids and opening tenders compromised transparency and secrecy.”
“Government rules on minimum time for submission of bids and collection of tender processing fee and earnest money deposit were not built into the system,” the CAG has said.
It further added “inadequate validation controls over data and absence of separation of duties enabled users to perform multiple e-tendering roles affecting the integrity of action done.”
