An in-house malpractice within public tender committees to unofficially blacklist bidders who raise questions regarding unfair procurement processes should be reined in to provide a levelled ground for all Rwandans to participate, the Transparency International Rwanda (TIR) Chairperson; Marie Immaculée Ingabire has said.
She said this while appearing on a local radio panel to discuss whether laws are observed during public procurement processes.
Ingabire said that although the introduction of the E-procurement system has solved some of the issues in public procurement, there is still some work that needs to be done to ensure that corruption and unfairness are eliminated.
"When we are doing surveys, we find out that reporting incidences is very low. From what we have seen on the field, entrepreneurs tell us that openly talking about the plotting that goes on in these committees automatically gets them unofficially blacklisted,” she said.
In 2017, Rwanda was the first African country to introduce an e-procurement system which was aimed at reducing corruption, improving transparency and efficiency, and minimizing potential collusion among bidders.
Ingabire criticised the lack of teamwork that she blamed for impending the national development plan.
"Yes, e-procurement fixed some but not all. We should stop calling this unfair treatment. It is corruption because no one does such without any benefit. We still have people in public institutions who refuse to observe the value in teamwork so that we all contribute to the development of our country.
Big challenges
The Head of the Audit and Monitoring Department at the Rwanda Public Procurement Authority (RPPA), Goretti Buhiga admitted that although there has been significant improvement since the introduction of the E-procurement system, there were still some challenges with some individuals’ failure to observe the set laws.
"We have a challenge where standard documents are not well prepared yet they are the foundation of smooth tender processes. We have seen incidences where some documents are prepared with some people in mind or even to block others from participating,” she said.
She explained that as a result, a decision has been reached to give special attention to entities and institutions like districts, whose tender processes continue to be questioned by the Auditor General in his annual reports.
"It is difficult to act when the agreement has been signed between the institution and the investor, so what we are going to do is to scrutinise every detail in every tender that these particular institutions issue before they sign the final agreements,” she said.
Buhiga called for a further review of the e-procurement system where deterrents can be added.
"For instance, there are tenders that don’t require experience because of how small they are, but we still find some institutions that insist on this. The laws are clear but some people continue to ignore them. We need more stringent measures in the system where someone can be stopped when they are adding things that are not necessary,” she said.
Not the first time
A recent survey conducted by the Strengthening Rwandan Administrative Justice (SRAJ) Project to explore the state of public procurement at the local level indicates that 55 percent of the respondents admitted to have lodged complaints contesting the processes.
The Resident Country Director of the SRAJ project Seth Karamage told The New Times in an interview that the survey was largely represented by small and medium businesses (82 percent). The largest of this group was the construction sector (36 percent) and general services (14 percent).
"Respondents said that they were compelled to lodge procurement appeals based on supporting documents required for tendering (23 percent), procedures and/or selection criteria (22 percent), and the application process and the e-procurement, as well as the score results from the tender evaluation (16 percent),” he said.
Fresh guidelines
Earlier this year, the Minister for Justice, Johnston Busingye issued fresh guidelines to heads of all government institutions regarding public procurement.
The fresh guidelines seek to plug the loopholes that have previously resulted in misuse or misappropriation of public funds.
The minister pointed out that some of the issues that affect government contracts stem from failure to undertake basic due diligence, failure to conduct needs assessment and unclear definition of the scope of work or terms of reference or technical specifications.
Busingye, also the Attorney General, said there was a failure on the part of procuring entities to observe fundamental principles governing public procurement, such as transparency, competition, economy and fairness.
"Contracts from conception to execution still present loopholes and it is costing our country dearly in terms of different resources, and delayed or abandoned development projects. We need to close all loopholes and remain on our guard throughout the life of the entire contract,” he said.