Government institutions can now run almost all of their procurement for the coming year before Parliament approves the Budget, a change the Treasury says removes up to six months of dead time from project delivery.
Secretary to the Treasury Dr Harshana Suriyapperuma set out the reform on Friday, NewsFirst reported.
The problem being fixed
Under the old sequence, ministries and departments had to wait for parliamentary approval of the Budget before starting any procurement. For complex or large projects the procurement process alone could take six to eight months, which left institutions only a fraction of the financial year in which to actually build anything.
The result was a structural squeeze: money voted for a year could not realistically be spent inside that year.
What changes
Working with the National Procurement Commission, the Treasury has introduced a revised methodology allowing procurement for the following year to begin during the preceding year.
Institutions preparing 2027 projects may now:
- advertise procurement opportunities and invite tenders
- shortlist and select participants
- appoint Bid Evaluation Committees and High-Level Procurement Committees
- complete evaluation procedures up to — but not including — the award of contract
Once Parliament approves the Budget, institutions can issue award letters from the beginning of January.
“We have saved six months in the process,” Suriyapperuma said.
The design keeps the constitutional point intact: no contract is awarded before Parliament votes the money. What moves earlier is the administrative work ahead of the award.
One TRADE goes live
Suriyapperuma also said the National Single Window for Trade went live in pilot mode on 5 November, after what he described as nearly two decades of attempts to establish such a system.
The platform is being switched on sector by sector. Tea and coconut are the first two segments onboarded. The first two container shipments processed entirely through the online system have successfully left Sri Lanka, he said, which he offered as evidence the platform works end to end.
This desk reported the gazette giving that platform legal force on 6 November — the day after the pilot start date the Treasury Secretary has now disclosed.
The broader objective, he said, is to keep Sri Lankan businesses producing and meeting their commitments to international markets despite a difficult global economic environment.
Not reported
The filing does not say when the revised procurement methodology took effect, whether it was issued as a circular or a gazette, or whether it applies to foreign-funded projects. It gives no figure for how many 2027 procurements have already started under it, and does not address what happens to a tender process if Parliament amends or rejects the relevant allocation. On One TRADE, it does not name the next sectors to be onboarded or give a date for full rollout.
