Last week President Uhuru Kenyatta issued an ultimatum to government agencies who are yet to embrace e-procurement in their agencies to do so or risk losing their jobs.
Launched in August last year, IFMIS e-procurement is expected to significantly change the tendering process by speeding up process as well as enhance accountability and transparency.
And in a move that is seen to prepare the corporations for the roll out of the IFMIS e-procurement platform, treasury has so far trained 600 officials from various state corporations.
The Standard reports that the first session started on Wednesday and the training will run up to Friday with a the IFMIS Department scheduled to carry out a follow up three-day in-depth training and support once the system is deployed to the parastatals.
Procurement, finance and ICT officers are the main beneficiaries of the training as they will be the primary users of the system.
“This is a system that will improve the speed of procurement, provide better oversight, transparency, accountability and governance,” said Mutua Kilaka Principal Administrative Secretary National Treasury when he opened Wednesday’s workshop. The rollout of the system will be the final phase of getting all government agencies to use the automated e-procurement platform. “Almost 40 per cent of our budget goes to procurement and it is thus essential to take a look at how we are spending this money,” said Ochieng.