Editorial
Citizens' monitoring of public procurement
The watchdog body needs to be failsafe to deliver
THE planning minister's frank admission that graft gobbles up 40 to 50 per cent of the public funds allocated against any procurement contract only confirms the public perception on the issue. Since public procurement involves about 70 per cent of the expenditures under the Annual Development Programme (ADP), the amount of money involved in it is also huge. Naturally, unless the rules of procurement are strict and foolproof, one should not be too surprised if a significant sum of the money leaks through into corrupt hands.
Reassuringly, the minister has informed that a Public-Private Stakeholders' Committee (PPSC) has been instituted as a watchdog to ensure transparency and accountability in the Public Procurement Act (PPA) and thereby institutionalise social audit of public procurement.
This is certainly a good move to make the expenditure of the public money in the procurement process answerable to the representatives of the various stakeholders from the private and the public sectors.
However, the success of the PPSC in plugging the holes through which corruption creeps in depends on how effectively it can oversee the procurement process.
But recently, with a view to speeding up the procurement process some provisions of the Public Procurement Act (PPA), 2006 have been amended. The somewhat relaxed procurement regime has definitely thrown a fresh challenge before PPSC or any monitoring mechanism for that matter meant to ensure transparency in the purchasing procedure as it has by definition become vulnerable to quarters seeking to gain from the slackened procurement rules. By bringing public procurement activities within the ambit of what it calls 'social auditing' through engaging citizens through the PPSC, it is expected that accountability and transparency in the procurement procedure could be ensured. The point is, being a new entity itself it would have to go through a lot of self-assessment and evolution before becoming efficient in delivering the goods.
The exalted motive behind creation of the watchdog body, PPSC, to involve the private sector alongside the government to oversee public procurement is commendable. Now, its modus operandi will have to be worked out thoughtfully. It would have to devise a mechanism to ensure that it can deliver while on the job of monitoring the performance of public procurement activities.
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