Promoting value for money through Open Contracting

Public procurement

Public procurement is purchasing goods, works and services on behalf of a public authority to benefit citizens.

Problems in public procurement

By its nature, a contract is a two-party agreement. The award of a public contract in secrecy usually gives rise to problems affecting its results. Some of these issues are:

• Shoddy works,
• Corruption
• Project delays
• Inflated costs
• Unplanned costs
• No Value for money

Open Contracting as a solution

Open Contracting is the concept that public procurement should be conducted in the open as this leads to better accountability, fair contracts for governments and more transparency in the business environment.

Open Contracting Data Standard- OCDS

A significant challenge in public procurement is tracking procurement throughout the whole procurement process. That is, from plan to tender, to contract awards and, finally, implementation. To do this efficiently, you need to find a way to identify specific procurements uniquely. The Open Contract Data Standard is useful in archiving this.

The OCDS is a world-renowned open data schema which allows procurement data to be sharable, reusable, machine-readable across the entire cycle of public procurement.

Publishing OCDS data can make public procurement more open and encourage a comprehensive and in-depth analysis of the effectiveness, transparency and honesty of public procurement systems.

Why Open Contracting

The essence of open contracting is to keep the public in the loop and enable them to monitor proper resource utilization and effective project execution.

Open Contracting ensures sharing, reusable and machine-readable procurement data throughout the public procurement cycle

It can help stakeholders:

1. Deliver better value for money for governments
2. Create fairer competition and a level playing field for businesses especially small firms
3. Deliver high-quality goods, services and works for citizens
4. Prevent fraud and corruption
5. Promote smarter analysis and better solutions to public procurement problems.

Open Contracting in Uganda

With the support of the Democratic Governance Facility (DGF), Hewlett Foundation and PPDA, the Africa Freedom of Information Centre — AFIC successfully advocated for Open Contracting.

In 2017, The Public Procurement and Disposal Authority — PPDA committed to aligning the Government Procurement Portal -GPP to Open Contracting Data Standard which increased the amount of information disclosed.

The Role of Government

PPDA launched the Government Procurement Portal (GPP) as part of the reforms to make the government procurement system more efficient and accountable.

Since then, the GPP has made it possible for Procuring Entities to publish data on procurement. The data released by Procuring entities through the GPP include:

• Procurement Plans
• Active Tenders
• Awarded Contracts
• Suspended Providers

Analysing the procurement data

What is the data saying?

Conclusion

Open Contracting enhances the ability to move, compare, and analyze procurement data. Record keeping is more effective through the Open Contracting Data standard, thus strengthening the quality of contract data.

The government does not only need this as a measure against fraud or transparency but as a basis for improving operational procedures