E-Tender - An Approach for Ensuring Transparency in Defence Budget Management

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Abstract:

The authors present a software product development in support of conducting of electronic tenders (“e-Tender”). The product may be implemented in accordance with the purposes of the Law on Public Tenders - the law that establishes terms and procedures for public procurement. E-Tender will facilitate transparency of defence policy concerning planning and budgeting processes - one of the main objectives of Partnership for Peace programme. This article considers the e-tender not only as an Internet on-line application for improving transparency of defence management but also as a decision support tool.
The following objectives are achieved through successful realization of a public web site for electronic submission of documents: increased public access and transparency of tenders; confidentiality of any company information provided; and confidentiality of proposals made by the prospective contractors. Each participant, through specialized programmes called agents, is able to ask for the opinion of “independent” experts (for example, experts from foreign centres for analyses and prognoses) and to add to the database of potential project contractors. Another advantage is that the possibility to create a database for those companies that have successfully executed contracts, as well for companies that have had significant problems in meeting the customers’ expectations. The software realization of such tenders would also provide excellent opportunities for accelerating the execution of urgent requests, for example, procurement of perishable products. In addition, an interested observer would be able to check what were the criteria and the method of analysis chosen by a contractor. As a whole, the transparency of public procurement relates closely to the widely discussed issues of e-Government.