Lessons from the purchase of the Brompton Bike

Read Lucky Tan's views here.

My own view is that the Government's purchasing procedure should be updated to apply the following principles:

• Common sense
• Accountability
• Trust

We can still have purchases through GEBiz, but it should be made easy for potential suppliers to be alerted and to submit a quote. There is no need to pre-register for approval to use GEBiz. By all means, ask the supplier to register the essential particulars after their quote has been accepted. 

The selection should be based partly on common sense (i.e. judgement) and accountability. We have to learn to trust people to make judgement, after paying them top salaries.

Some suppliers have told me that it is frustrating to go through a lot of hassle to register in GEBiz, to submit many quotations and not get any business. They gave up.