Acceso usuarios
Roberto Laguado
Government Procurement can be described as the process by which large amounts of public funds are utilized by public entities to purchase goods and services from the private sector. The incorporation of Information Technologies to Government Procurement is called Electronic Government Procurement. This dissertation will describe Colombia¿s policy and regulation making process on the matter. It underscores that Colombia¿s legal framework on Electronic Government Procurement now includes the two legal pillars that UNCITRAL has established in its works on the matter, which are: 1. Rules about electronic disclosure of government procurement related information and 2. Rules about functional equivalence of electronic government procurement documents. Functional equivalence is a principle of electronic commerce that allows the replacement of paper-based physical documents with electronic documents. This research emphasizes that before the 8th of July 2005 Colombian Electronic Government Procurement legal framework lacked the functional equivalence pillar and this circumstance denied the possibility of using Information Technologies in Government Procurement administrative Procedures. Furthermore, it explains how thanks to the issuance of Law 962/2005, the pillar has been introduced to the regulatory framework as this law has established new rules about functional equivalence for administrative procedures. Prior to concluding, the author provides his own interpretation of Law 962/2005. The sources of this research have been Colombian policy documents and legislation, international reports and regulations and legal journals and textbooks. This dissertation arrives at the conclusion that Colombian Government Procurement legal framework has been complemented thanks to Law 962/2005 in such a way that it is now possible to do Electronic Government Procurement.
