CATHREEN MAENDAENDA
Dar es Salaam
THE government’s procurement watchdog has described the culture of secrecy prevailing in many of the lucrative state procurement tenders and contracts as one of the major corruption loopholes in the country.
The chief executive officer of the state-run Public Procurement Regulatory Authority (PPRA), Dr Ramadhan Mlinga, acknowledged in Dar es Salaam yesterday that corruption remains one of the key problems facing the public procurement sector.
Dr Mlinga said such corruption was being encouraged by a continuing lack of transparency and timely access to important information with regard to many tender announcements.
Speaking with journalists on the sidelines of a procurement sector stakeholders’ meeting in the city, the PPRA chief also cited the frequent failure of authorities to follow laid-down procedures as another basic factor contributing to corruption within the sector.
’’Corruption is a major problem in public procurement in Tanzania. To solve this problem, much more openness and transparency is required in making public all information about tendering processes,’’ he said.
Dr Mlinga explained that as a rule, all procurement tenders should be widely advertised to enable as many potential applicants as possible to receive the information, and a transparent process should be followed in selecting the successful bidder.
He stressed that one of the main objectives of the PPRA, which was formed under the Public Procurement Act of 2004, is to ensure fair competition in the awarding of public procurement tenders.
The head of the public procurement watchdog also said there is a need to create better awareness among Tanzanians regarding procurement matters, as a way of monitoring and enforcing proper compliance with public procurement legislation, rules and regulations.
Among other things, the PPRA has the mandate to issue standard bidding documents and guidelines to be followed in public procurement.
A participant at the meeting, Private Sector Participation Programme (PSPP) national team leader Athuman Ngwallo, noted that the private sector is also not immune to irregularities in the area of tendering.
According to Ngwallo, some private companies are also unable to win lucrative government tenders because of a lack of knowledge about specific tender guidelines.
Discussing challenges in the procurement field faced by the education sector, participant Rakesh Rajani said a conducive environment needs to be created for ordinary people to be able to speak out and be heard when reporting about corruption.
Rajani, representing the prominent education NGO Hakielimu, said although the problems in public procurement are clear to most observers, there are no encouraging channels for people to voice their concerns and expect any positive actions to be taken as a result.
According the World Bank’s country procurement assessment report for Tanzania issued in 2003, the government has long acknowledged the existence of rampant corruption in the country, and has said it is fighting hard to reduce it.
The report says it is estimated that at the national level, about 20 per cent of government expenditure on procurement is lost through corruption, mainly in the form of kickbacks and bogus investments that eventually have to be written off.
’’Considering that public procurement accounts for about 70 per cent of the entire government expenditure budget, this translates to a loss of $300m (approx. 300bn/- at the time) per year, which is enough to finance the combined annual recurrent budgets of the ministries of health and education,’’ says the report.
’’Clearly, such a loss is economically unsustainable,’’ it points out.
Citing major losses occurring in construction and supply contracts, and describing these as major avenues for corruption particularly at the local government level, the report concludes that ’’the need for enhancing the transparency of the procurement system cannot therefore be overemphasized.’’
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