As the East African Community (EAC) member states prepare to improve their procurement systems by adopting the e-procurement platform, the element of having legislative structures that will monitor and allow for an effective implementation of the system is still an impediment to its success.Recently, the East Africa Community converged in Nairobi to discuss the challenges and opportunity arising from this new system that is expected to promote transparency and ensure efficiency during procurement transactions.

In Kenya, implementation of the e-procurement system will begin in six months time through pilot units. The project, which is being funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) in conjunction with the Kenyan government, is expected to eradicate the element of delay which is usually experienced during the procurement process.

Jerome Ochieng, ICT manager, Public Procurement Oversight Authority (PPOA) says the system will help in procurement planning through a general template for the players. The system will also support e-tendering since most of the procurement documents will be uploaded and evaluations done online to prevent unusual delays during awarding of tenders.

The challenging element of the system will also be to support online purchasing which Ochieng observes is a tricky issue since it has not been developed comprehensively due to the inability of the system to code goods into their rightful categories.