Kinshasa, August 30th, 2022 (CPA) – The President of the Republic, Felix Antoine Tshisekedi Tshilombo, recommended to the government to extend the use of the new computer device called « Integrated Public Procurement Management System » (SIGMAP) to all the country’s public entities. The Head of State lifted this option in his speech during the launch ceremony of this tool of the Ministry in charge of Budget, on Monday at Rotana hotel, in Gombe municipality. To do this, he cited among these entities, the administrations of the central power, public enterprises and establishments as well as the provinces and the decentralized territorial entities, stressing that the date of launch of this computer system symbolizes, for DRC, its entry into the digital age, with a view to improving transparency and modernizing public procurement management procedures. “This date materializes and testifies to our political will and our commitment to take up a double challenge. The latter consists firstly in materializing reforms imprinted in the governance of public finances and secondly, it effectively raises the level of improvement in the quality of public expenditure”, he said. The President of the Republic also added that « this software, a 100% Congolese product, sufficiently proves that DRC can contribute to the digital revolution to which the world is committed » and that it will allow our country to accelerate its march on the road to development.
A tool for coordinating links in the public procurement circuit
In his speech, the Minister of State, Minister in charge of Budget, Aime Boji Sangara, noted some specificities and other innovations of SIGMAP which, according to him, is « an efficient system which makes it possible in particular to coordinate the functional links between the actors of the system, for the management of public procurement operations as well as centralizing, processing and disseminating all information on public procurement”. For him, the implementation of this computer tool which he considers, as the response to the weaknesses of public procurement and the management of public finances, will also allow each actor concerned to know the conditions for which the award of public contracts are organized. Speaking of the functionalities of SYGMAP, the Minister of State Boji mentioned in particular the recording of the plans for the passage of the markets and the automated processing of a priori control; the management and publication of judgments of public contracts; the management of all public procurement operations, the monitoring and execution of public procurement, the management of appeals; monitoring of all public procurement operations through a dashboard as well as the automatic production of statistics. The President of the Republic, it will be recalled, had, at the fifty-eighth meeting of the Council of Ministers, instructed the Minister in charge of Budget to take, without delay, all the necessary measures for the effective launch of the pilot phase of the Integrated System Project for the Management of Public Contracts. Previously, the national coordinator of the « Orientation and Public Finance Reform Committee », Godefroid Misenga, indicated that the integrated management system is software that automates all procurement procedures, reduce the processing time of files and ensure their traceability as well as promote the automatic production of statistics. He specified that this software includes a web portal likely to make available to the general public, all the relevant information on the procedure for awarding and executing public contracts. The Prime Minister, several members of the government, the high authorities of the country and the heads of the State services involved in the public procurement chain took part in this ceremony.
