The three-day training, organised by the Ministry of Finance, Planning and Economic Development in partnership with the Public Procurement and Disposal of Public Assets Authority (PPDA), the Ministry of ICT and National Guidance, and the National Information Technology Authority-Uganda (NITA-U), targets permanent secretaries, chief executive officers and heads of government institutions who are legally responsible for procurement decisions.
The initiative follows the successful rollout of the e-GP system to 36 government entities and marks the next phase of Uganda’s transition from manual procurement processes to a fully digital platform.
Speaking during the opening of the training, Acting Accountant General Godfrey Ssemugooma said accounting officers are central to the success of the reforms because they are ultimately responsible for procurement within their institutions.
“Our procurement laws place responsibility on accounting officers. They cannot effectively discharge those responsibilities without being empowered to use the Electronic Government Procurement System. This training is only the beginning as we prepare to onboard even more entities during this financial year,” Ssemugooma said.
Once connected to the platform, participating institutions will abandon manual procurement procedures, including newspaper advertisements, physical bid submissions, paper-based evaluations and manual contract signing. Instead, every stage of the procurement cycle will be conducted electronically through a secure online platform.
According to Ssemugooma, the digital system is expected to significantly reduce opportunities for corruption by eliminating unnecessary human interaction and automatically verifying suppliers against government databases.
“Every time you automate a process, you minimise human contact, and it is often that human interaction that creates opportunities for corruption. The e-GP system is integrated with URA, URSB, NIRA and NSSF, meaning suppliers’ eligibility is verified automatically. It becomes extremely difficult to submit forged documents or manipulate procurement records,” he explained.
He added that every transaction undertaken on the platform leaves a permanent electronic audit trail, allowing oversight institutions to easily monitor procurement activities and detect any irregularities.
Beyond the current training for accounting officers, Ssemugooma said procurement officers, heads of departments, private sector suppliers and oversight institutions will also receive specialised training to ensure the system is effectively adopted across the public sector. Each government entity will additionally be assigned technical support personnel during implementation.
The Acting Accountant General noted that the web-based platform is hosted at the National Data Centre and can be accessed from anywhere with internet connectivity. In the event of technical interruptions, procurement timelines will automatically be extended to guarantee fairness to all bidders.
He said the reforms are expected to shorten procurement timelines, improve efficiency and deliver better value for public expenditure.
“The biggest gains will be efficiency, transparency and accountability. Every action is recorded on the system, procurement timelines are significantly reduced and, ultimately, we expect the country to achieve better value for money in public spending,” Ssemugooma said.
Meanwhile, Mariam Baluka, Acting Director of Procurement and Disposal Capacity Building at PPDA, said the latest rollout introduces e-GP Version 2.0, which incorporates improvements based on feedback received from users of the initial system.
“We listened to the experiences of government entities and service providers using Version 1.0 and incorporated their feedback into Version 2.0. The new system is much easier to navigate, includes voice-guided registration and user support, and even has embedded YouTube tutorials to help users learn the platform,” Baluka said.
She said PPDA has developed a comprehensive sustainability plan to ensure continuous user support through online training, dedicated technical officers assigned to each entity and collaboration with the Ministry of Finance’s regional Treasury Service Centres, where additional personnel will provide hands-on assistance to both government institutions and private sector suppliers.
Baluka emphasised that Uganda’s migration to electronic procurement will be implemented in phases until all public entities are connected.
“We started with 36 entities and have now added another 100. We shall continue onboarding more entities every financial year until the entire Government is operating on the Electronic Government Procurement System. The objective is to fully digitalise public procurement,” she said.
She further warned suppliers interested in government business to register on the e-GP platform, noting that institutions already operating under the system no longer advertise tenders in newspapers and cannot award contracts to firms that are not registered electronically.
“Procurement on the system is end-to-end. Tenders are advertised electronically, bids are submitted electronically and contracts are processed electronically. If a provider is not registered and activated on the system, they will not be able to participate in government procurement,” Baluka said.