Indonesia government to implement e-biding

In a move to minimize corruption, president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono signed a decree to implement e-biding system so all government transactions are transparent enough to any citizen interested in the procurement of services and goods.

National Development Planning Minister Paskah Suzetta said government will establish a website dedicated to government agencies, independent commissions, state-owned enterprises, local administrations, and companies owned by local or regional administrations. Under the decree, these organizations should announce all plans to procure goods and services in the website.

Indonesia government is ranked as the most corruptive nation in the world partly because of poor transparency in its procurement of goods and services. But e-biding should be more than just announcements.

In fact, in the last few years, some government-related agencies and state-owned companies have started to implement e-procurement system. Take for example Pertamina. But if you enter the website www.pertamina.com, you'll only find tender announcement in Indonesia language. That's not fair indeed.

The Upstream Oil and Gas Regulatory Body (BP Migas) at www.bpmigas.com is better, even though not all the tender announcement available in both Indonesian and English.

E-bidding or E-procurement should be designed as a user-friendly system that just needs a controlled password from users and buyers to get into the system. The system should also has full electronic audit trail archive that allows one to able to view every bid that has been submitted, by whom and when upon completion of the bid. The inclusion of the bidding history paves the way for a bidding process that is fair and ethical.

I believe, full e-procurement is not yet possible because electronic documents are yet to be given legal status in the Indonesian courts. Thus all key documents must still be handled in the conventional manner. So to make the e-bidding, e-tendering or e-procurement as an important system in combating corruption needs serious drafting of e-commerce bill. But as the first step, the new website would improve transparency. Good move.

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