Tender Dropping Efficiency in the Roads and Highways Department of Bangladesh: A Cost and Time Context Comparison of Manual and E-procurement

Abstract

Bangladesh has used a manual tendering system since its inception, following the legislative direction of PPA-2006 and PPR-2008. Manual tendering has long been a source of concern for bidders when dropping tender documents in terms of tension, cost and time. To overcome this problem, the Government of Bangladesh launched the e-Procurement system in 2011 under the e-GP guidelines. Following the successful pilot testing conducted under the umbrella of the CPTU, all public Procurement Entities (PE) are attempting to implement e-procurement tenders. This study aims to test the cost and time involved in tender dropping both manual and e-procurement tenders. Roads and Highways Department (RHD) is chosen as population. Sample data was collected from the 11 RHD zones. Structured survey questionnaires were made to collect primary data from the bidders of RHD. The independent samples t-test was used to perform a hypothesis test of two groups like tender dropping cost and tender dropping time. The test results indicated that e-Procurement tender dropping costs and time were less than manual tendering. Academicians, students, practitioners, researchers, and policymakers will benefit from the study's conclusions. Keywords: Tender dropping cost, Tender dropping time, e-Procurement, t-test, e-GP Guideline, PPA-2006, PPR-2008