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It has been precisely six months since the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a pandemic. On 11 March, he called on all governments to “activate and accentuate emergency reaction mechanisms” with a strong emphasis on measures for fitness services.
Caution triggered an unprecedented purchasing frenzy in which governments acquired non-public protective equipment, medical devices and other property. As the number of cases and deaths increased dramatically and economic constraints worsened, new desires emerged, adding the creation of new or transitional hospitals or the provision of food to vulnerable communities.
Six months after the start of the pandemic, many governments are still buying goods and facilities in an accelerated manner that lacks proper planning and oversight.
Meanwhile, the complexity of the virus has only marked public procurement with urgency and panic, and demonstrated how vulnerable and uns prepared governments are to deal with corruption networks and shop safely.
Numerous cases of fraud and irregularities have been exposed through audit and law enforcement institutions, as well as documented through news investigators, such as the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, and civil society teams around the world.
As we already said, by adopting blank contracts, governments can save lives and prevent the misuse of public money. More importantly, this requires transparency and independent control spaces in the purchasing process.
In the midst of the crisis, Transparency International’s global network paintings have been actively working to paint public procurement systems for non-unusual good. Our national chapters around the world have developed a variety of initiatives, taking into account local context and needs.
Projects carried out through the Transparency International chapters in Brazil, Mexico, Pakistan and Serbia are smart examples of how the public call can push governments to publish critical information, both nationally and subnationally. These projects tested the quantity, quality, format and opportunity to have data.
Many chapters of Transparency International have worked on the review, analysis and visualization of contract knowledge to identify patterns, trends or anomalies, these come with qualitative surveys documenting instances as well as quantitative studies based on statistical strategies and visualization techniques. The platforms will be available through the International Transparency sections in Argentina, Colombia, Kosovo, Peru, Portugal and Ukraine.
It is to oversee the procedures for acquiring COVID-19 as they develop, which our national chapters in Honduras and Latvia have been able to do; they use agreements signed with contracting authorities and, in some cases, factor ad hoc recommendations to address the dangers. corruption.
The Honduran government has purchased overrated cellular hospitals with a transparent medical justification for doing so, revealing an audit through the bankruptcy of Transparency International.
Civil society has a vital role to play in reporting potential violations and triggering actions through establishments guilty of investigating and prosecuting corruption cases. In Russia, an organization of journalists and activists, joining members of Transparency International Russia, introduced an open and collaborative network to investigate corruption in government procurement, while in Tunisia, our segment demanded to revoke a contract after a journalist discovered a corrupt attribution procedure.
In Honduras, our segment requested a formal investigation through the Supreme Court of Auditors and the country’s Public Prosecutor’s Office, after conducting an audit and presenting its findings, relied on an agreement with the contracting authority to deliver the complete supporting documents of a series. Their findings are public and intended to be prosecuted when possible violations have been identified.
The sustainable fight against corruption in government procurement calls on anti-corruption activists to conduct an in-depth investigation of regulations, procedures and establishments to run into systemic disruptions and propose policy opportunities to address them. For example, in Mexico, a new contract law drafted through a coalition of experts and organizations, adding Mexican Transparency, and presented to Congressional leaders. In South Africa, a new bill was filed in Parliament, and our national bankruptcy of Corruption Watch made proactive recommendations and called for an open and collaborative process. legislative process.
Opaque and corrupt public procurement endangers people’s lives and livelihoods, and the consequences are worse in an emergency. We want a global verbal exchange, with a varied and comprehensive set of perspectives, for procurement systems to serve and serve the common good.
This discussion will need to bring together global, regional and national establishments, as well as independent organizations and experts to share not only their wisdom and experience, but also to take concrete steps towards greater transparency and accountability.
For example, foreign monetary establishments have a key role to play in ensuring that corruption does not support government procurement procedures financed through loans and subsidies to governments fighting the COVID-19 pandemic.
The International Monetary Fund has provided $1 trillion in creditworthiness to countries since the COVID-19 outbreak. Transparency International found that almost all monetary agreements involve express measures to transparency or reduce the threat of corruption.
For International Transparency, the existing pandemic has reinforced the concept that blank, transparent, accountable contracts for affected communities and taxpayers and in accordance with what is not smart unusual will have the norm, not the exception.
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