In a bid to roll out Electronic Government Procurement (EGP) in all government agencies by 2025, students pursuing Bachelor Business Administration at the School of Business were introduced to the new technology during a one-day training.
On April 14, a team from the Public Procurement and Disposal of Public Assets Authority (PPDA) met 2nd year and final year students of Bachelor of Business Administration (BBA) specializing in procurement and equipped them with skills on how to use the new procurement technology as part of the government initiative to move away from the manual paperwork system to the use of technology in all government entities.
PPDA is an organization that is mandated to oversee the procurement and disposal of public assets in all government entities in Uganda.
Dr. Christopher Alioni and Dr. Jude Mugarura, lecturers in the School of Business applauded the PPDA team for the opportunity rendered to the students.
“Since our BBA students of year three are the potential employees of these public institutions, we thought it wise to bring PPDA on board, to come and train our students about that system,” Dr Alioni said.
“It helped us to link the theory to the practice of EGP, and familiarize the students to this system”.
He added: “The intention of the training was to give the students the practical bit of what they have been studying. They also got an opportunity to see what is actually happening in the working world. And to find out the progress in the implementation efforts.”
Over 130 students attended the training which was held at the Yusuf Lule Central Teaching Facility.
Dr Alioni further revealed that the training was last conducted seven years ago: “It was held in 2017, and since then, we had never received such an opportunity again. But we thank the team that tutored our students.”
Doreen Nakakande, one of the students who participated in the training applauded PPDA staff for the wonderful task they conducted.
“It was so interesting and at the same time educational because we majored in procurement and we were more into the theories. It also proved to us that electronic procurement is possible because some people were saying that it can’t work in Uganda.”
Ronald Bwebale, another BBA student said: “The new system will ease the work since everything can be conducted electronically without having to do paperwork that is time consuming.”