According to the non-profit group Global Financial Integrity, developing world’s economies lose $1 trillion to corruption and graft annually yet the OECD gave the figure for the Net Overseas Development Aid for 2012-2013 as $ 134 Billion (as cited by Victoria L. Lemieux in an article posted in the world bank blog dated 2nd March 2015 titled “Is technology good or bad in the fight against corruption”). In this regard, I would like history to remember me as being part of the solution rather than being of the problem.
Proposed solution
The solution is a simple one. The entire public procurement should be digitized where records are created, captured and maintained in accordance with ISO 15489-1:2016. According to Lemieux (2015), as a consequence of digitization, all investigations are done electronically. The author, however, mentioned that there are various constraints associated with the digitization namely; high initial costs, security, sustainability of records, and intra-agency collaboration across technical platforms. However, the author noted that technology when used with skill can be quite instrumental in the fight against impunity. For instance, the Supervisor software implemented by Slovenia helped to reveal funds disbursed to limited companies that benefited from regime change.
Implementation
Digitization of public procurement might be a time-consuming affair. Taking this into consideration, there is a need to implement immediate measures towards combating rampant corruption is within our borders. The government should engage public participation in the oversight and prevention of corruption before taxpayers’ hard-earned money is looted by hyena incarnates masquerading as public “servants”; redefining the word “servant” from one who serves others to one who serve themselves.
This can be reduced by publishing a list of all public entities’ tenders awarded including the specifics of the winning bid in the Public Procurement Regulatory Authority (PPRA). This will ensure that all tenders awarded by public entities are critically scrutinized. This is more so imperative since it is in the public domain that the latter usually audit a small sample from a large population. The public will achieve this as losing bidders will scrutinize the winning bid to see where they went wrong. In so doing, any tender awarded irregularly will be detected early before the taxpayers’ money vanishes since losing bidders will lodge a complaint to Public Procurement Administrative Review Board (PPARB), the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC) and/or the media. It will be difficult to irregularly award tenders in lieu of transparency in public procurement.
During the development of the digitization software, the government should ensure that there are various controls in place inherent to the software. The first control should be that all tender documents be submitted digitally just like in Public Service Commission (PSC) recruitment. The software should have profile-building functionality for bidders and attachment upload functionality. Tender documents and bids submission would, therefore, be done digitally. This will also ensure that blacklisted bidders and/or directors do not gain access to public procurement opportunities.
The submitted bids should be made unavailable by the system to all persons except the respective individual bidder until the tender opening date to preserve the integrity of the process.
The bidders should also be allowed to view, revise and/or recall and re-submit a new bid in place of a previous bid prior to the tender opening date. This functionality should expire after the tender opening date.
For standard goods and services, PPRA should publish Market Price Index yearly. This should be done at the start of a new financial year after the budget reading thereby reflecting the realistic prices for goods and services after the effect of the budget reading and therefore act as a realistic tool curb exaggerated prices. Open tendering is usually undertaken with the aim of attaining a price lower than the market price at best and market prices at worst-case scenarios. It is so disheartening that in many African countries, open tendering results in prices shockingly and significantly higher than the market price.
By capping the prices to market price, the government can save a lot of money which can be redirected to other development agendas or even the reduction of domestic as well as international debts. Another impact of this control is that tenderers’ supernormal profit margins will be significantly reduced to normal levels and therefore it will be uneconomical for them to influence the procurement process through corrupt means and therefore discouraging the same. Only legitimate businesses and tenderpreneurs will find the tenders lucrative and the winning bidder will be the one who has the most innovative supply chain thus the playing field would have been leveled.
Tender evaluation and award should also be done digitally and the specifics of the winning tender should be made available to all bidders in their respective categories. As aforementioned, irregular award of tenders will be detected early and the relevant preventive action is taken rather than waiting until auditing is done and maybe, just maybe, if we are lucky, corrupt and fraudulent award of tender will be detected and remedial action taken after the loss of taxpayer’s money.
Requisitions by the user should be done digitally and a resultant serialized and printable copy is auto-generated for signing. External requisitions to suppliers by the procurement department should also be done through the system whereby Local Purchase Order (LPO) and Local Service Order (LSO) are auto-generated by the system and a resultant serialized and printable copy is made available for signing by the relevant person(s). This should also be the case for Goods Received Note (GRN) with additional referencing features to the respective LPO/LSO number, quotation/tender number and the delivery note number.
After implementing the above-mentioned controls, the loophole that remains is store control. Dubious suppliers collude with government officials to supply non-existent/sub-standard goods and services. To curb this, all stores should be fitted with CCTV cameras and monitoring systems. Access to government buildings should also be logged digitally using a combination of biometric access systems for employees and electronic card access. In so doing, it will be easier for auditors to trace the delivery of goods and services.
Random stocktaking should be done by either PPRA or Office of the Auditor General (OAG). Any discrepancy between actual and system balance should quickly help identify any fraudulent acts. This will be the litmus test for fraud and pilferage within the store's function.
Implementing the digitization of public procurement does not render the manual system redundant. The digital system should supplement the manual system. For instance, Inspection and acceptance certificate should be endorsed manually as well as digitally by all the members of the Inspection and acceptance committee. Endorsement for choice of procurement method other than open tendering should also be done both manually and digitally. This is in a bid to prevent cases of signature forging and/or unauthorized access using another person’s access credentials as a control against manipulation of the procurement process.
All these controls will assist to significantly minimize corruption practices in public procurement. PPRA and OAG should be included in the task force in developing the software as their additional professional contribution could be quite vital in the practicality and effectiveness of the system. All the best Africa in your war against graft. You have my unwavering support towards achieving the same.
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