By A Staff Reporter
Kathmandu, Oct. 21: A task force will be formed to prepare drafts for amendment to the Public Procurement Act 2063 and Public Procurement Regulations so as to form the basis for timely modifications.
A meeting held at the Ministry of Finance on Tuesday decided to form a task force to draft the amendment under the coordination of the secretary of the Public Procurement Monitoring Office.

The task force will have representatives from the Office of the Prime Minister; Ministry of Finance; Ministry of Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs; Ministry of Physical Infrastructure and Transport; Ministry of Urban Development; Ministry of Energy, Water Resources and Irrigation; Ministry of Forest and Environment, Land Management, Cooperatives and Poverty Alleviation and other ministries.
The task force will study the Public Procurement Act, regulations, bidding documents, suggestions received from various bodies and experts, including the Federation of Contractors’ Association Nepal and submit a draft within 15 days.

During the discussion, the Public Procurement Monitoring Office presented a preliminary draft on the issues to be amended in the Act.
As per the arrangement, it has been proposed to reduce the time of submission of bids for public works.
In the case of international level bids, it has been proposed to reduce the duration by 10 days to 35 days and in the case of national level bids, it has been proposed to reduce by nine days to 21 days. It is also proposed to reduce the period of notification of intent to be published after the acceptance of such bids.

According to the new arrangement, it will take three days for national level bids and seven days for international bids.
The deadline for submission of bid has also been reduced from 15 days to seven days. In the meeting, the representatives of the Federation of Contractor’s Association Nepal submitted a 39-point recommendation citing that the provision made in the proposed draft is not enough for them.

Addressing the meeting, Finance Minister Janardan Sharma said it was necessary to make timely amendments to the Public Procurement Act and regulations with the objective of speeding up the public works with quality and also contributing to the national capital formation by increasing capital expenditure. He stressed on the need to prepare amendment proposal keeping in view the quality, transparency and competitiveness of public works.

Minister Sharma also directed to make arrangements for giving priority to domestic manpower as much as possible while selecting consultants for public works.
He directed to make legal arrangements for the implementation of the provision of carrying out work of projects worth up to Rs. 100 million through labour cooperatives.

Vice Chairman of the National Planning Commission Dr. Biswo Nath Poudel, Chief Secretary Shankar Das Bairagi, secretaries and joint secretaries of various ministries and experts expressed their views on the errors and issues that need to be rectified in the Public Procurement Act and Regulations.