E-AUCTIONS FOR GOVERNMENT PROCUREMENT

A LESSON LEARNED IN THAILAND

Abstract

The practice of e-procurement as the government procurement system varies from one country to another. Depart from the common purposes such as efficiency, transparency, non-discrimination, and accountability, countries may run their procurement systems differently. Some countries may run their e-procurement system successfully with some notes in their practice, some may still face barriers, and others may only partly implement e-procurement. Trial and error may not be an effective method of learning, thus it is essential to learn from other countries' experience in running e-procurement.
This paper presents a distinct practice of government e-procurement, namely e-Auctions, as used by the government of Thailand. The government of Thailand runs two types of e-Auctions: Reverse Auction and Sealed Bid auction, which result in lower prices due to the higher price competition. Contrary to the common practice of e-procurement, the Thai government, with some rationales, runs the bid documents obtaining manually as well as qualification and technical documents submission and holding the e-Auctions at bidding office. The advantages and disadvantages of Thai e-Auctions practice are presented in this paper as well as improvements that have to be made for successful of e-Auctions. The lessons learned from Thai e-Auctions practice is expected to be a constructive reference in establishing e-procurement system.