STAFF CORRESPONDENT

As many as 17 percent of all government tenders had only one bidder in the last 12 years, found a study by Transparency International Bangladesh.

This means the government contracts were awarded without any competitive price bidding among several contenders, which is in violation of the government procurement policy.

TIB, which analysed the data of 52,837 contractors of the government’s e-GP portal from 2012 to 2025, found that a further 27 percent of all bids had between two and three bidders.

Over 44 percent of all tenders were floated by the government under the “limited tendering method”.

The limited tendering method can be deployed when the goods, services or works are only available from a limited number of suppliers.

Since the launch of the e-GP system in 2011, a total of Tk 596,921 crore has been spent through the platform. The top 10 contracting ministries account for about 92 percent of the total spending.

Analysing the top 10 contracting ministries, the report found that the top 5 percent of contractors were awarded 61.31 percent of the total money spent.

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