Procurement law in trouble
An investigation by the Institute of Public Policy Research shows that few government ministries and other public entities are complying with the provisions of the Public Procurement Act.
Sweeping non-compliance and apparent zero repercussions for defying some of the provisions of the Public Procurement Act are threatening its power to ensure transparent use of the taxpayer's money, a just-published report has found.
Researchers at the Institute of Public Policy Research (IPPR) say their investigation on whether public entities are complying with the stipulation to publish annual procurement plans online found that most ignore this guideline.
Among the culprits are the finance ministry, Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC), The Central Procurement Board and the office of the president.
“The Public Procurement Act was supposed to give Namibian taxpayers a better look at what's happening in procurement. That was the whole point – the efficiency, the accountability and the integrity,” the IPPR's Frederico Links said at the launch of the second edition of the procurement tracker yesterday.
Links said non-compliance was casting serious doubt on the Act's effectiveness as a transparency and anti-corruption tool.
According to Act, public entities must produce and publicly share annual procurement plans online, and the finance ministry's procurement policy unit is tasked to duplicate those plans on the ministry's website.
Low level of compliance
The IPPR's research team found that only 14 of the 30 ministries' procurement plans for the 2018/19 financial year appear on the website of the ministry of finance, as stipulated by the Act.
Out of 58 local authorities, the annual procurement plans of only eight are available on the finance ministry's website.
Out of 70 state-owned enterprises, regulatory bodies and statutory agencies, only 21 have their annual procurement plans on the ministry's website. Out of 101 government websites the IPPR looked at, the annual procurement plans of only five entities were available, including the Office of the Prime Minister, Office of the Auditor-General, Namibia Ports Authority, Namibia Qualifications Authority and the Development Bank of Namibia. Sources told the IPPR that many more annual plans had been submitted to the finance ministry but had not yet been published online.
Still, the IPPR noted that “in many other cases, the fact is that almost halfway through the 2018/19 financial year, annual procurement plans had yet to be submitted to the procurement policy unit.”
Links said non-compliance by even the finance ministry and the ACC, which should lead by example, was deeply concerning.
The absence of repercussions for those failing to comply contributes to the problem.
The IPPR warned that “the way the annual procurement plans are handled indicates that significant transparency and accountability gaps remain in the public procurement sector.”
The first edition of the procurement tracker, launched in July, stated that “as of July 2018, transparency in the public procurement realms remains an immense concern, even as the new procurement dispensation was meant to inject greater transparency.”
Exemptions galore
Another major issue identified in the first issue was the high use of exemptions and “other forms of discretionary decision-making in public procurement.”
The IPPR warned that these and other issues have “set alarm bells ringing and already seem to have dented perceptions of the new public procurement dispensation.”
On the issue of exemptions, as highlighted previously by the IPPR, a commentator with reliable information of the workings at the finance ministry yesterday alleged that a big issue is the circumvention of the law by public entities keen to avoid a no from the ministry.
Researchers at the Institute of Public Policy Research (IPPR) say their investigation on whether public entities are complying with the stipulation to publish annual procurement plans online found that most ignore this guideline.
Among the culprits are the finance ministry, Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC), The Central Procurement Board and the office of the president.
“The Public Procurement Act was supposed to give Namibian taxpayers a better look at what's happening in procurement. That was the whole point – the efficiency, the accountability and the integrity,” the IPPR's Frederico Links said at the launch of the second edition of the procurement tracker yesterday.
Links said non-compliance was casting serious doubt on the Act's effectiveness as a transparency and anti-corruption tool.
According to Act, public entities must produce and publicly share annual procurement plans online, and the finance ministry's procurement policy unit is tasked to duplicate those plans on the ministry's website.
Low level of compliance
The IPPR's research team found that only 14 of the 30 ministries' procurement plans for the 2018/19 financial year appear on the website of the ministry of finance, as stipulated by the Act.
Out of 58 local authorities, the annual procurement plans of only eight are available on the finance ministry's website.
Out of 70 state-owned enterprises, regulatory bodies and statutory agencies, only 21 have their annual procurement plans on the ministry's website. Out of 101 government websites the IPPR looked at, the annual procurement plans of only five entities were available, including the Office of the Prime Minister, Office of the Auditor-General, Namibia Ports Authority, Namibia Qualifications Authority and the Development Bank of Namibia. Sources told the IPPR that many more annual plans had been submitted to the finance ministry but had not yet been published online.
Still, the IPPR noted that “in many other cases, the fact is that almost halfway through the 2018/19 financial year, annual procurement plans had yet to be submitted to the procurement policy unit.”
Links said non-compliance by even the finance ministry and the ACC, which should lead by example, was deeply concerning.
The absence of repercussions for those failing to comply contributes to the problem.
The IPPR warned that “the way the annual procurement plans are handled indicates that significant transparency and accountability gaps remain in the public procurement sector.”
The first edition of the procurement tracker, launched in July, stated that “as of July 2018, transparency in the public procurement realms remains an immense concern, even as the new procurement dispensation was meant to inject greater transparency.”
Exemptions galore
Another major issue identified in the first issue was the high use of exemptions and “other forms of discretionary decision-making in public procurement.”
The IPPR warned that these and other issues have “set alarm bells ringing and already seem to have dented perceptions of the new public procurement dispensation.”
On the issue of exemptions, as highlighted previously by the IPPR, a commentator with reliable information of the workings at the finance ministry yesterday alleged that a big issue is the circumvention of the law by public entities keen to avoid a no from the ministry.
Comments
Namibian Sun
No comments have been left on this article