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The enactment of the Public Procurement Law has been thrown into renewed doubt as a key ministry drags its feet to accomplish the vetting process.
Besides, the stiff opposition from a section of "reform-shy" cabinet members has already clouded the prospect of the act.
The Law Ministry is yet to complete its job despite having received the draft of the Public Procurement Law 2005 more than a month ago, official sources said Monday.
The delay on the part of the Ministry of Law has deepened suspicion that the bill seeking reform in public purchase is unlikely to be tabled in parliament before the general election, slated for early next year.
A cabinet sub-committee, constituted to recommend amendments to the law, is also flexing its political muscle on the ministry concerned, thus leaving the process to drag on, relevant sources alleged.
Sources said the Ministry of Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs recently sent the draft law to the implementation, monitoring and evaluation division (IMED) of the Planning Commission once again in the name of "queries".
Law ministry officials declined to explain why the process of vetting is getting protracted.
But a high official of the IMED Monday acknowledged the seemingly dramatic development with regard to the enactment of law.
"We forwarded the responses to the queries Sunday to the Ministry of Law. You can't blame the bureaucrats for the delay, alone. Now, it's a game of reform-shy policymakers," the official said.
Sources said the cabinet sub-committee suggested a number of amendments to the draft law and those still remained as classified ones.
Even, the local office of the World Bank is in the dark about the amendments as proposed by the cabinet members.
"The original law has been drafted in a way that would have made it difficult for the potential bidders to influence the public agencies or manipulate the tender document," an IMED official, who was involved in the process, said.
This explains why a section of businessmen-turned politicians are opposing the enactment of such a law designed to reduce the massive graft involving the public procurement.
"But it entails political risks … the government may not go for enacting the law with the next general election is just a year away. If enacted, the law will curb the scope for resorting to corruption in tendering," the official explained.
Bangladesh's donors are often critical of the corrupt practices in public purchase estimated at more than US$3.0 billion a year. And the government initiated the process of making the law to stamp out corruption involving the government purchase.
Officials say the unbridled corruption in public purchase and the massive irregularities in awarding contracts are the main reasons why the anti-graft body, Transparency International (TI), labelled Bangladesh as the most corrupt nation in the world for five consecutive years.
If enacted, the procurement law would help revolutionise the way the government agencies procure goods and services in the coming days, financial analysts say.
But critics remain sceptic about the possible outcome of the Act.
Neither the bilateral donors, nor the multilateral agencies had complied with the rules stipulated in the Public Procurement Regulations 2003 (PPR 2003), an official of the Economic Relations Division (ERD) said.
There was a "little likelihood of following the new procurement rules by the country's donor community", he added.
Referring to the examples of China and Japan, the official said these two countries often tend to bypass even the international competitive bidding.
By various estimates, the purchase of goods and services in the public sector accounts for around 70 per cent of allocations under the annual development budget.
Many countries around the world, including France, Russia, Poland and the Philippines, framed such laws. But only the Philippines had made a detailed and comprehensive law.
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