Government procurement portal to be upgraded

The public will soon see more improvements to the country’s electronic procurement portal, GoJEP.

GoJEP is a web-based, collaborative system designed to facilitate the full life cycle of the tendering process for both buyers and suppliers.

Generally speaking, members of the public can log on to view the activities of procuring entities.

Speaking at a recent JIS Think Tank, Chief Public Procurement Policy Officer at the Ministry of Finance and the Public Service, Jovell Barrett, said that while the full slate of upgrades will be revealed in the coming months, the focus is on making the system more user-friendly for the public.

“GoJEP is fairly new and we are always improving the usability and the user friendliness of the system. And we take feedback on the system and where there’s a need to improve, we do the improvements to the system,” Barrett said.

He explained that user feedback has already led to specific changes, particularly in how contract award notices are searched and filtered.

“For example, when it comes to contract award notices, we would have recognised that the way in which persons are able to filter the notices by procuring entity, by procurement method, it wasn’t as user-friendly,” he said.

Barrett noted that this concern was addressed in recent system updates.

“In the last two months, prior to the publication of Guidance Note #2 (on emergency procurement), we made an adjustment to the system, so that persons who go on are able to more easily filter and find the contracts that they’re interested in. They can filter by procuring entity, they can filter by value, they can filter by procurement methods,” he said.

As a result, users now have better experience when searching for awarded contracts.

“We’ve improved the user-friendliness of the contract award notice section of the GoJEP. And we are continuing to make improvements. In the next couple of months, you will see many more improvements being rolled out into the system,” Barrett said.

Beyond contract awards, he emphasised that the portal supports transparency and public oversight of procurement activities.

“And so, generally speaking, the public can go on and see the activities of procuring entities on GoJEP. The office plays an important role in ensuring that there is compliance and we provide a system where the public can see what is taking place in entities,” he said.

Barrett added that the system also serves as a central hub for procurement opportunities.

“We provide a system where registered suppliers or suppliers who are not registered, or the public generally, can see the notices that have been published by procurement entities for procurement opportunities,” he said.

He encouraged Jamaicans to use the platform not only to track awards but to participate.

“You can log on to GoJEP at www.gojep.gov.jm, not just to see contract award notices but just to see the competitions that are out there that maybe you would want to participate in,” Barrett said.

- JIS News

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