The Public Procurement and Concessions Commission (PPCC) says it will hold its Third Annual National Procurement Forum aimed at identifying implementation challenges and shortcomings of PPC Act of 2010 and design innovative ways that will open new avenues for greater digitization in public procurement functions.
President George Manneh Weah is expected to deliver a keynote address, while partners from the diplomatic and development circles will make remarks at the occasion. This year’s Forum will be held on the theme: Innovation and Reforms: Strengthening Liberia’s Public Procurement System.
The Forum, according to a PPCC statement, will bring together procurement stakeholders from the public and private sectors, as well as development partners to do stocktaking of PPCA’s implementation and make recommendations for further actions and improvement.
Stakeholders attending the Forum will gather at the Ministerial Complex in Congo Town, from December 1-2, 2021, at which speeches and major deliberations, as well as a business session will be held. This will be followed by streets parade on the Morning of Friday, December 3, 2021, from Broad Street to the Monrovia City Hall for a climax of the program.
The World Bank office in Liberia is funding the Forum through the Integrated Public Financial Management Reform Project (IPFMRP) based in the Ministry of Finance and Development Planning (MFDP). The IPFMRP project is the key driver of the public procurement modernization effort. It seeks to establish a well-functioning procurement system in Liberia by employing the necessary tools to digitize procurement and ensure effectiveness and efficiency in public procurement.
The holding of the 2021 Annual National Procurement Forum is part of preliminary activities that will inform the establishment of an electronic procurement platform in Liberia and remove the anomalies and individual discretions often associated with paper-based procurement.
The first Annual National Procurement Forum was held in 2008 following two years of implementing the Public Procurement and Concessions Act of 2005. Experiences shared by stakeholders and the outcome thereof informed the restatement and amendment of the 2005 Act.
Also, in 2016, the 2nd Annual National Procurement Forum was held by the PPCC and partners with the objective of engaging and gathering feedbacks from relevant stakeholders on the implementation bottlenecks of the Restated and Amended Act of 2010. Part II, Section 5(i) of the PPC Act of 2010 mandates the PPCC to hold an annual procurement forum on the status of the implementation of the Act
The Commission urges the public to join in the celebration as we together walk the Compliance Journey in Liberia to promote transparency, accountability and boost public confidence in the procurement and concessions processes.
