The Evaluation Team at the General Secretariat of the Tender Board organized two separate workshops focused on assessing the system for improving spending efficiency related to government projects, procurement, and tenders. The first workshop was held with the Ministry of Health, while the second was with the Ministry of Transport, Communications, and Information Technology. During these workshops, the evaluation objectives, key themes, characteristics, roles, responsibilities, and change management were discussed.
One of the evaluation goals is to review the performance of the system, which includes four main areas: facilitating the work of entities in managing tenders, procurement, and projects; measuring the progress in completing data for each government entity; assessing the utilization of available digital platforms and opportunities for their development; and measuring the contribution of entities to local content percentage.
The evaluation relies on collecting data from digital platforms, characterized by four technical features. The first feature is the provision of electronic platforms for government entities that encompass characteristics for all stages of tenders, procurement, and projects. The second is the ease of access for entities to information. The third feature enables government entities to track work procedures, and the fourth provides direct reports and dashboards for users in each government entity.
The workshop also covered preliminary evaluations, which include detailed reports for each entity, measuring the efficiency of procedures, and identifying aspects needing further attention for each area, along with indicators for improvement areas. The participants discussed the views of entities regarding evaluation criteria and the systems used to obtain data.
Roles and responsibilities in the evaluation system are distributed as follows: the General Secretariat of the Tender Board is responsible for developing digital systems, monitoring the performance of entities through an indicator dashboard, working on improvement plans in collaboration with government entities, and preparing reports to measure procedural efficiency while conducting workshops with these entities.
The responsibilities of government entities include regularly updating the digital platforms with information and data and taking necessary actions to improve performance to achieve spending efficiency.
The evaluation is divided into two phases. The first phase, in 2024, includes entities with the highest project execution and continuity, such as the Ministry of Transport, Communications, and Information Technology, the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries, and Water Resources, the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Housing and Urban Planning, and the municipalities of Muscat and Dhofar. The second phase expands the scope of the evaluation to include additional government entities.