Role of Public e-Procurement Technology: A Way to Stimulate Accountability, Efficiency and Transparency in Case of Bhutan

Abstract

This study presents the role of public e-procurement technology; a way to stimulate accountability, efficiency and transparency in the case of ten Ministries in Royal Government of Bhutan.It highlights the significance of ICT in the Public Procurement and the impacts resulting from the adoption of an e-GP system in Bhutan through the development of e-procurement impacts model. This model is intended to establish a relationship between dependent and independent variables where ICT and stakeholders act as the main players. The survey was conducted across ten Ministries in Bhutan. The key respondents were Director, Procurement Officer, Finance Officer, ICT Officer & Civil Engineer and 27 large size contractors who were directly associated with the system. The model of Mugenda & Mugenda (2013) was adopted in the study to determine the sampling size. The SPSS was used to analyze the collected data from the respondents of the survey. The study indicated that 91.3 % of the respondents agreed that the e-GP system increases transparency, efficiency and accountability in the public procurement process. The study also concludes that the ICT plays a pivotal role in supporting entire procurement functions to accomplish the annual public procurement goals in the Ministries.