Dear Finance Practitioners of Sg's public sector,

May I seek your views on whether procurement has good prospects within the public sector [i.e. (I) Ministries and Organ of States plus (II) Stat. Boards], especially those who are conversant with the IM on Procurement and GeBIZ.

It is quite common that the Procurement Branch of each agency is parked under the Corporate Services / Finance Division, although there are a handful who will either house them under Strategic Planning or Resource Management. As a corollary, it is often viewed as a admin / back office role, with less visibility to management.

However, due to the recent spates of high profile cases of procurement lapses, there has been significant emphasis made to enhance the procurement compliance process via revisions to the IM, as well as the development of the Procurement Specialist Track to strengthen the competency of procurement officers. Analytics programs via GeBIZ Management Console ("GMC") has also been rolled out to make Procurement less of an admin job and more of an analytical role.

With the advent of the track and the more pertinent role procurement plays within an organisation, do you think it is worthwhile to pursue a career in procurement? Or is it still subordinated to more popular finance roles such as Financial Accounting / Analysis, iIternal Audit or Budgeting.

Thank you in advance for sharing your comments on the aforementioned.