The new online Purchasing and Contracting portal presented this Monday by the Télam National News Agency “will make the processes for acquiring goods and services more transparent,” stated its president, Bernarda Llorente, who led its launch together with authorities from the Undersecretary for Institutional Strengthening of the Chief of Cabinet of Ministers and the Anti-Corruption Office.
Télam thus became “the first (public) body to complete an initiative” within the framework of the National Integrity Strategy (ENI), “a strategic planning exercise” of the National Executive Branch promoted by the Anti-Corruption Office and the Chief of the Cabinet of Ministers, in which fifty agencies of the Executive Branch participate.
“Since we started the reconstruction of Télam, almost three years ago, we have been setting goals and we have been fulfilling them despite the pandemic, all the difficulties and even the war. We are the first agency (of the State) to be able to take this modality, and we are proud to be able to show what we are doing in the most efficient way possible.Llorente added.
In this sense, he stressed that “a fundamental part” for this is “to carry out an absolutely transparent management” and that Télam, as a national agency open to the community that tries to represent all Argentines, has to “set the example” in terms of to the institutional mechanisms of transparency, and in terms of “management that complies not only with the parameters imposed, but also by expanding those parameters”.
For his part, the Undersecretary for Institutional Strengthening of the Chief of the Cabinet of Ministers, Alejandro Grillo, highlighted the “milestone” that Télam marks with the online modality of its processes, and considered the agency’s work in “strengthening the institutions”, because “institutional strengthening is a contribution to democratic strengthening” in the framework of a moment of “hyperrightization of societies”, he considered.
Along the same lines, the undersecretary of the Transparency Policy Planning Directorate, Luis Villanueva, highlighted that “A large part of the social capital of Argentines are state companies and public companies“, and recalled that Télam was “beaten” during the management of former president Mauricio Macri, and with “threats to do it again, which is worse,” he reinforced.
“A portal like this has to do with showing public policy focused on taking care of every peso that Argentines give us, showing how we manage them, it is a mechanism to generate competitiveness and better suppliers,” Villanueva concluded.
“We are very pleased to be accompanying today the first organization that completes one of its initiatives,” said Natalia Torres, National Director of Public Ethics of the Transparency Policy Planning Department, during the meeting, who highlighted the value of the National Strategy of Integrity.
“This shopping portal is part of a government management that joins a new paradigm that is that of open and electronic government, which brings the population closer to the possibility of participating with their offers from anywhere they are. -online-“, highlighted the general manager of Télam, Natalia Nierenberger.
The new portal is a software developed 100% by Télam that does not depend on any external provider, tailor-made for the agency, which shortens timeand “leave aside the envelope and the fact of carrying out face-to-face acts,” explained the agency’s Administration and Finance manager, Leonardo Ciucci.
For its development, “it was always thought of improving the experience of the internal and external user”, concluded Ciucci.
The purchase and contracting portal of the National News Agency Télam is available for those interested clickingand the video presentation can be seen here.
