Proud Winner of the 2023 Publica Awards!

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The Publica Awards reward laudable public projects and public actors, and underline the diversity and richness of the projects. In addition, they are the platform for the development of future projects and ideas, for and by local governments.

The e-Procurement platform

On 4 September 2020, the Council of Ministers approved to replace the current e-Procurement platform with a new enhanced one. This new platform was launched on 4 September 2023, meaning buyers and businesses can now access a user-friendly integrated platform without the need to switch between different legacy applications.

Despite numerous updates to the previous platform, a renewal to a modern and future-proof technology was imminent. In addition, regular regulatory changes also required an update. These included the European Commission's obligation to use new announcement forms (eForms) for public procurement and the Royal Decree of 13 August 2023 on the governance of public procurement and concessions that brings more transparency to public procurement. The new platform meets these new obligations and thus FPS BOSA ensures the continuity and legal conformity of its public procurement services, both at Belgian and European level.

The main objective of this project is to ensure continuity. All buyers in Belgium (more than 5,500) use the e-Procurement platform. The previous one was used by more than 100,000 end users. Every year, more than 20,000 contracts are published on the platform and more than 70,000 tenders are submitted. More than 150 framework agreements are also shared between hundreds of buyers via the platform.

Besides a hefty increase in usability, the platform also comes with some perks:

• From now on, you can also find award notices for public contracts that do not have to be published (contracts starting from EUR 30,000). This additional transparency is another big step forward for companies.
• Purchasers can also send notices (of selection, award, closure, etc.) to tenderers. These will later also be able to be sent via the e-Box for companies.
• The platform also provides a great help in correctly tracking framework agreements on which multiple participants procure. If the platform is used correctly, better forecasts can be made so that placement of a new agreement can be started in time.
• When developing the new platform, an API approach was resolutely chosen. API stands for Application Programming Interface. The API enables extensive integration with other platforms (e.g. customer organisations' own systems). All publicly available information is also made available via API. At go-live, about a dozen other applications have already been linked.