A Total of 1,215 procuring entities have successfully announced annual procurement plans worth 46.88trn/- through the National e-Procurement System of Tanzania (NeST) for the period covering between July 2023 and March, 2025.

However, 144,096 tenders have been announced through the system managed by the Public Procurement Regulatory Authority (PPRA) during the period under review.

Dennis Simba, PPRA’s director general told journalists yesterday in Dar es Salaam that a total of 130,032 tender awards worth 14.97trn/- were made through the system during the referred period.

Similarly, a total of 1,215 procuring entities including 56,778 schools and health centres are using the system and processing various tenders within the system.

According to him, in local governments, including secondary and primary schools, Health centres, Dispensaries, wards, villages, and districts. Since the implementation of the lower level module, have put into place procurement plans worth 1.55trn/- with a total of 139,080 tenders.

During the last 2023/24 financial year, he said, the government has saved $4.93 million equivalent to 13.33bn/- through the National e-Procurement System of Tanzania (NeST) managed by PPRA.

The saved funds were previously used for purchasing paper for the preparation and completion of tenders.

Simba asserted that since the implementation of the NeST, for the 2023/24 financial year alone, a preliminary study conducted by PPRA revealed that the use of NeST has reduced 617.85 metric tons of carbon footprint.

Between July 2023 and March, 2025, 34,678 bidders were approved and registered through NeST, of which 33,114 were local bidders and 1,564 were foreign bidders.

Across all procurement institutions, a total of 57,993 procurement institutions have been registered with NeST with a total of 117,900 registered users.

Among these procurement institutions, there are 1,215 central and district level institutions and 56,778 local government level institutions.

“53,584 users have registered as bidder managers. A total of 56,778 schools, health centers, dispensaries, wards, villages, and districts have registered on the system and started applying it,” he said.

The Authority has continued to provide training on the understanding of the system to various user groups.

For the financial year 2024/25, PPRA has provided training to a total of 117,826 participants as of February, 2025 from 9,937 participants.

To date, NeST has been integrated with more than 20 government systems to facilitate verification and authenticity of information and exchange information with other systems where necessary.

The Public Procurement Act, Chapter 410 of 2023 has given PPRA the authority to establish and manage an e-Procurement System to facilitate the processing of public tenders through NeST.

Since July 2023, the e-Registration system has been completed and operational and to date 33,472 bidders have been registered (31,686 locals and 1,503 foreign).

PPRA has developed a mobile application that is used by purchasing institutions at the school and health center, village or district and ward levels.

This application is also used by bidders to obtain information and apply for bids.

The goal is to simplify the public procurement process wherever the user is.