President Luis Abinader, accompanied by former Vice President Milagros Ortiz Bosch, visited on Tuesday the Procurement Agency (DGCP) to learn about the new Integral Monitoring and Data Analysis System developed by the institution to supervise online procurement and contracting processes. Ortiz Bosch is the director of the Ethics Agency under the Presidency.
Carlos Pimentel, director of the Procurement Agency, presented the Preventive and Reactive Alert System (SAPR), which identifies government bodies that may have violated Procurement Law 340-06.
President Abinader said the visit was to back the excellent work in favor of transparency and efficiency being carried out by the Procurement Agency. He said a 48% rise in new suppliers reflects trust in the new administration.
Abinader said the improvements in controls at the Procurement Agency complement actions taken by the National Controller’s Office that has added audit and fraud control divisions.
President Abinader said that these actions and the soon to be elected new members of the Chamber of Accounts place the government in better control of public spending to avoid administrative corruption.
“This tells you that we are moving from one corner to another, from a lack of control to a true system of control and that when Dominicans want to do things right, we can be the example and be at the forefront,” added President Abinader.
For his part, the director general of the DGCP, Carlos Pimentel explained the system guarantees greater efficiency in public spending and will contribute to imorove public contracting.
Pimentel emphasized the importance of this system, given that the Dominican government handles an average of 150 to 200 contracting processes daily. He said the new Procurement Agency controls are now in place in around 340 purchasing units throughout the government entities that now will be monitored by an automated system. He explained that all entities that manage public funds and must comply with Law 340-06 will be subject to this monitoring.
In addition to its role in preventing fraud, the new integral data system enables collecting, analyzing, and interpreting all the data generated through the operations carried out by the purchasing units, suppliers, and the DGCP. The data is converted into formats for decision-making on government procurement.
Carlos Pimentel yesterday also clarified that the new Public-Private Partnership Law excludes these entities from regular procurement procedures.
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Presidency
DGCP
4 February 2021