374 high public officials have measured their public procurement competencies
By: Dirección Chilecompra
Publicado: September 27, 2009
A new accreditation session was held on Friday, September 4 in Santiago, with the participation of 170 government authorities, including sub-secretaries, heads of public services, superintendants, governors, mayors, hospital directors and the National Economic Prosecutor, Enrique Vergara Vial.
Previously this year, 194 high public officials had already taken a similar but shorter accreditation exam, which is a requisite for all employees of the public procurement units of Chilean public institutions.
A total of 374 sub-secretaries, mayors from municipalities throughout the country, governors, superintendants and heads of public services have taken the public procurement accreditation exam. This process has been designed for Chile’s high government authorities, organized by the Public Procurement Bureau, and offered in different regions during 2009.
The goal of this process, which has been held in Concepción, Santiago and Iquique, is to strengthen knowledge of the public procurement system among all high government officials, reinforcing the principles of probity and transparency in the management of public funds used to purchase the products and services offered on the www.mercadopublico.cl platform. During the present year, this platform shall represent sales for over USD 6 billion.
As part of this process, the Director of ChileCompra, Felipe Goya, and the institution’s Economic Prosecutor, Trinidad Inostroza, met with government authorities to explain the operation of the Public Procurement System, as well as its current regulations and future projections. The activity ended with an evaluation of each issue covered.
Although less extensive, this exam is similar in content to the one taken by heads of procurement, attorneys and auditors involved in the operation of procurement processes on a daily basis.
Since 2007, over 5,000 public employees have successfully completed this SAT-style accreditation exam, which was created with the collaboration of the University of Chile’s Department of Educational Evaluation, Measurement and Registry (DEMRE), through an agreement with the Public Procurement Bureau. DEMRE has also been responsible for correcting the exams.
More than USD 3.1 billion traded on the public market through July 2009
As of July, the www.mercadopublico.cl platform had generated trade for USD 3,104,995,219 during 2009, a figure 22% greater than the same period in 2008. Meanwhile, a total of USD 591.5 million was traded during July, an increase of 9.7% over June 2009 and 61.3% over July 2008. For more information, see the Monthly Management Report.