Carlos Pimentel, Director General of Public Contracting, revealed that in the current administration, the National Institute for Student Welfare (Inabie) has concluded more than 2,000 contracts for an amount exceeding DR 68,543 million.
Pimentel made the remark during his participation in the conference “Integrity and Good Governance”, organized by the Office of Free Access to Information (OAI) of Inabie, in which he highlighted that of the amount awarded, 42.79% corresponds to contracts with women and 52.21% with men.
Support to MSMEs
With these numbers, Inabie far exceeds the fulfillment of the 20% quota for MSMEs required by law, benefiting this sector with 76.41% of the contracts. The same happens with the quota for women MSMEs, for which the law establishes 5% and which in Inabie exceeds 40%.
He also highlighted that 96% of Inabie’s bids are received digitally, while he indicated that the general contracting system is moving towards this objective with the structural changes made by the governing body of procurement to guarantee rights.
These data were corroborated by Inabie’s executive director, Victor Castro, who highlighted the impact on the welfare of students produced by developing transparent and participatory procurement processes.
“As we had already said, Inabie is the State institution that most supports MSMEs for the dynamization of the economy and it is vital for us to ensure that all these processes are carried out with transparency to guarantee rights and in our case, those of the students who are the present and future,” he stressed.
Culture change and good governance
In turn, Paulo Herrera Maluf, consultant in strategy, finance and organizational change of the State, highlighted the growth and change that Inabie has undergone to overcome the challenges in terms of transparency and good governance.
“Inabie is a living example of when talent, governance and integrity come together. The facts are there. It is hard to believe that in less than two years the institution has advanced so much,” he said.
Herrera congratulated Inabie’s current management for having changed the negative vision of its programs, mainly the School Feeding Program with method, development and discipline, to become a reference of good management.
Conference “Integrity and Good Governance”.
Pimentel and Herrera Maluf participated as speakers at the conference “Integrity and Good Governance”, where they discussed trust in public procurement for student welfare.
The activity, held at a hotel in the capital, was aimed at directors, managers and public servants of the welfare institute.
Rosanna Alberto, in charge of OAI, explained that the objective of the event was to reaffirm to the employees “the duty to act with integrity, specifically in public procurement processes, for the benefit of students in the public sector”.
Pimentel concluded that “public procurement as a tool for the development of a country must always be based on transparency and equal opportunities to build a true social and democratic state, especially one that guarantees rights”.
Source: presidencia.gov.do
