The Department of Contracts -
Winner of the National Enterprise Support Award 2016
In a ceremony held on Thursday 16th June 2016 the
Department of Contracts has won one of the categories in this year’s edition of
the National Enterprise Support Awards (NESA) organised by the Commerce
Department within the Ministry for the Economy, Investment and Small Business.
This competition was open to various types of organisations
competing in three different sections; local councils competing in Section “A”,
ministries, departments, public authorities and entities and public-private
partnerships competing in Section “B”, and NGOs, trade unions, professional
associations, public and church schools, educational programmes and business
organisations competing in Section “C”.
The Department of Contracts’ entry focussed on the category; improving the business environment
which recognises innovative policies at national or local level which promote
enterprise start-up and growth, simplify legislative and administrative
procedures for businesses and implement the “Think Small First” principle in
favour of small and medium-sized enterprises. The department’s entry explained how the above
was achieved through the introduction of the Electronic Public Procurement
System, a system which revolutionised the way public procurement is conducted
in Malta through the use of ICT.
The
Electronic Public Procurement System has a number of advantages for
enterprises. Primarily, it is a web
based system and therefore accessible anywhere and anytime. An innovative and very useful feature for
enterprises is the tender alert function whereby economic operators when
registering can choose which types of tender they would be interested in,
according the type work, supply or service they provide. Economic operators would then receive alerts
whenever a tender under their area of interest is issued therefore removing the
need to go through lists of tender notices on each issue of the government
gazette to find a specific tender. All
tender-related information is downloadable from the system and tender
submission can also be done online. The
summaries of tenders received and award notices are all available on the system
whilst tender clarifications are also requested and submitted through the
system. The Department of Contracts
organises weekly training sessions for economic operators and has a dedicated
customer care service on the system.
Since
the 1st of January 2016 the Electronic Public Procurement System has
become the only tool used for government tendering. From its official launch in 2011, more than
17,000 Calls for Tenders (CFTs) have been published through the system and up
till the end of March 2016 there were 3,243 economic operators registered on
the system. When
it comes to training, so far 144
workshops have been delivered by the department’s IT Unit for 947 employees of
economic operators giving practical training on how to use the system.
The
Electronic Public Procurement System has been very beneficial to enterprises
since it reduced administrative costs and lead time and increased accessibility
and transparency in government public procurement.
The NESA award received by the department of contracts has a
prize of €10,000 attached to it which the Department decided to donate to the Puttinu
Cares Foundation. The Department of
Contracts will now be representing Malta in the European Enterprise Promotion
Awards 2016 which will be organised later this year in Slovakia.
