{"id":24297,"date":"2023-01-21T09:06:50","date_gmt":"2023-01-21T09:06:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/africa-committed-reformers-are-pushing-for-open-procurement"},"modified":"2023-01-21T09:46:34","modified_gmt":"2023-01-21T09:46:34","slug":"africa-committed-reformers-are-pushing-for-open-procurement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/africa-committed-reformers-are-pushing-for-open-procurement","title":{"rendered":"Africa: Committed reformers are pushing for open procurement"},"content":{"rendered":"

Africa-Press – Lesotho. <\/strong><\/span><\/a>In part two of our review of some of the most active stakeholders attempting to reform how governments spend their money across Africa, we profile an activist in Cameroon, an anti-corruption campaigner in Kenya, as well as a procurement officer and a data analysis firm in Nigeria.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt became clear as we continued to work and agitate for a corruption-free Kenya that it was necessary to do a lot of work on public procurement,\u201d says Sheila Masinde, executive director at Transparency International Kenya (TIKenya).<\/p>\n

The data on annual losses to corruption speaks volumes. A former Kenyan Auditor General has estimated that around 30% of public budgets \u2013 a large part of which is spent on procurement \u2013 is lost to corruption each year: a staggering one trillion Kenyan shillings ($8.8bn) per budget year.<\/p>\n

This phenomenon is known as \u2018budgeted corruption\u2019. \u201cThose budgets have basically been padded so that there is something that people can steal,\u201d says Masinde. There are challenges around conflicts of interest.<\/p>\n

You get to a point where you realise that a lot of government business is conducted between government and government: between a government entity and a person working in government but wearing another hat, sometimes trading through proxies.<\/p>\n

There are a lot of companies that are owned by government officials and politically-connected individuals. There is a question around beneficial ownership,\u201d says Masinde.<\/p>\n

Transparency International and other organisations are engaged in projects to counter such conflicts of interest. The global Open Contracting for Health project works to strengthen transparency and open contracting in public health spending.<\/p>\n

Scandals linked to emergency procurement of PPE last year at several Kenyan ministries merely undermine the importance of reform. Masinde says some of TI Kenya\u2019s biggest achievements so far have been contributing amendments to pro open contracting legislation, such as the Public and Procurement Asset Disposal Act 2016.<\/p>\n

Sensitising new stakeholders on corruption is also key. TI Kenya does capacity building for SMEs to engage in the procurement sector. \u201cSMEs are then able to document and report corruption when they encounter it,\u201d Masinde told The Africa Report. Corruption ultimately infringes on the rights of Kenyan citizens by denying them access to functioning basic services.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you talk about services that really matter to Kenyans, you\u2019re talking about health, you\u2019re talking about education, about infrastructure, water security, food security and so on and all these are dependent on foolproof procurement systems,\u201d says Masinde.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo that I am able to walk into a hospital and get the medicine that I require; I\u2019m able to take my child to a public school and they are then able to access the books and learning materials they need; I should be able to open my tap and have free-flowing clean water.<\/p>\n

All these things are not possible if we don\u2019t have sound public procurement systems that are open and transparent. \u201d Nigeria remains a gargantuan task for reformers looking to reduce corruption in public spending in Africa\u2019s largest economy.<\/p>\n

Yet the southwestern Ekiti State is showing that with the right reforms and the right support, public procurement can be made to be more open, inclusive and efficient for taxpayers.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Public Procurement System in the state has been upgraded with the deployment of an internally built mechanism to launch the state into the era-of e-procurement,\u201d Egghead Odewale, director-general of the Bureau of Public Procurement in Ado-Ekiti, Ekiti State, told The Africa Report.<\/p>\n

Vendor registration and e-certification modules are currently functional in the state and have made the practice more efficient and effective in terms of service delivery,\u201d adds Odewale. The shift to a digital procurement solution happened on 1 October 2021.<\/p>\n

Odewale says that Ekiti \u2013 with a population of just over two million \u2013 is about to deploy additional e-procurement solutions that will address e-tendering, e-evaluation, e-awarding and e-contract management.<\/p>\n

Inherent resistance to change and bureaucratic bottlenecks inevitably slowed progress in Ekiti State\u2019s shift to a digital \u2013 and more transparent \u2013 procurement ecosystem building on open contracting, says Odewale.<\/p>\n

The World Bank provided training to several procurement officers in the state this year (Ekiti is also part of the Lift program), while four key pilot procurement departments were established within MDAs in the state. Existing procurement records were also digitalised. Ekiti is part of a country-wide program that works to improve e-procurement across the country.<\/p>\n

\u201cCameroonian civil society is increasingly concerned by all public procurement processes,\u201d Charles Martial Ngounou, an open procurement campaigner and president of Cameroon-based NGO AfroLeadership, told The Africa Report.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is about being involved in each phase of the process leading up to the award and subsequent steps.
\nThe Cameroonian government began reforming procurement in 2013, allegedly in response to a poor score on the Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index, claims Ngounou.<\/p>\n

The Ministry of Public Procurement was created that same year. Yet until recently, procurement and how procurement is regulated were governed by the same agency. That has changed and a new law in 2018 laid the path for a more transparent system. Yet hiccups remain.<\/p>\n

The government of Cameroon is currently implementing the Cameroon Online E-Procurement System COLEPS, a two-phase transition to a digital ecosystem, implemented via a partnership signed with South Korea in 2013.<\/p>\n

\u201cCOLEPS is not yet fully effective,\u201d says Ngounou.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have to recognise that there are many difficulties in the path of civil society organisations, in terms of relevant involvement in the monitoring of contracts and public purchases,\u201d adds Ngounou.<\/p>\n

For More News And Analysis About Lesotho<\/a> Follow Africa-Press<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Africa-Press – Lesotho. In part two of our review of some of the most active stakeholders attempting to reform how governments spend their money across Africa, we profile an activist in Cameroon, an anti-corruption campaigner in Kenya, as well as a procurement officer and a data analysis firm in Nigeria. \u201cIt became clear as we […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":24296,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,6],"tags":[242,233,246,245],"class_list":["post-24297","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-files","tag-africa","tag-africa-press","tag-africa-press-lesotho","tag-lesotho"],"yoast_head":"\nAfrica: Committed reformers are pushing for open procurement - Lesotho<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"In part two of our review of some of the most active stakeholders attempting to reform how g ...\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/africa-committed-reformers-are-pushing-for-open-procurement\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Africa: Committed reformers are pushing for open procurement\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"In part two of our review of some of the most active stakeholders attempting to reform how g ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/africa-committed-reformers-are-pushing-for-open-procurement\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Lesotho\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/AfricaPressTunisiaa\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2023-01-21T09:06:50+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2023-01-21T09:46:34+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/sites\/62\/2023\/01\/postQueueImg_1674279552.13.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1024\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"587\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/africa-committed-reformers-are-pushing-for-open-procurement#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/africa-committed-reformers-are-pushing-for-open-procurement\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"cfeditoren\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb\"},\"headline\":\"Africa: Committed reformers are pushing for open procurement\",\"datePublished\":\"2023-01-21T09:06:50+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2023-01-21T09:46:34+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/africa-committed-reformers-are-pushing-for-open-procurement\"},\"wordCount\":919,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/africa-committed-reformers-are-pushing-for-open-procurement#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/sites\/62\/2023\/01\/postQueueImg_1674279552.13.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Africa\",\"Africa Press\",\"Africa Press-Lesotho\",\"Lesotho\"],\"articleSection\":[\"all news\",\"files\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/africa-committed-reformers-are-pushing-for-open-procurement#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/africa-committed-reformers-are-pushing-for-open-procurement\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/africa-committed-reformers-are-pushing-for-open-procurement\",\"name\":\"Africa: Committed reformers are pushing for open procurement - 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