B. Project Cost and Financing

B. Project Cost and Financing

29. The project cost and financing arrangements is described below. All figures are in US$ million. The counterpart fund of US$5 million is joint co-financing for part of the eligible incremental operating cost and O&M for the e-GP system as mentioned in Annex 2. The fuel, honorarium, and other expenditures excluded by the incremental operating costs definition would be financed from GoB contributions. Taxes are estimated to be less than 15 percent.

30. The proposed operation Digitization of Implementation Monitoring and Public Procurement Project (DIMAPPP) is built on the success of the previous two operations. The key lessons learned from the previous projects are as follows: continuity of high level political commitment regardless of the party in power especially for the introduction of e-GP expedites its implementation; success of reform depends not only on technical solutions but largely on the approach taken to manage the stakeholders and their behaviors; involving key stakeholders both from the public and the private sector contributed positively; using beneficiaries’ lens is critical in reform; applying IT innovations and social media are tremendously powerful tool. Other lessons concerning challenges include: inefficient manual data collection process; weak analytical ability of CPTU; inadequate staffing skills with specific reference to IT skills; existing bureaucratic process; institutional capacity constraints; allow large sector organizations to play higher role given their successful implementation of e-GP; bidders fast training need; focus more on the demand side of reform through participation of citizens/beneficiary groups/stakeholders in the monitoring of procurement process and outcomes; more use of Right to Information for disclosing procurement specifications. While large sector organizations are rapidly progressing with e-GP, there are numerous other public sector organizations that need to take advantage of actual use of the e-GP platform.