Maximizing the Impact of Open Contracting: Lessons from Estonia and Uganda.
What is open contracting, and what are its benefits for citizens and businesses alike?
Open Contracting is making the Government's contracting process more transparent and accountable. Open contracting helps in ensuring that contracts signed with both citizens and businesses meet quality standards and offer maximum value to the public purse. Businesses benefit in knowing what standards they will need to meet when bidding for work with public sector organisations. It also levels the playing field and addresses the concern that only large companies with large overheads can tender for government contracts, negatively impacting small local businesses.
How transparent is the process of open contracting in Estonia? How does it work at national and local levels?
The Estonian Government is committed to making its spending more transparent. In 2011, Estonia became the first country to make all Government spending fully transparent. This is part of our big push towards digitalising as many operations as possible and promoting more efficient working methods that deliver better value for money for citizens. Estonia's aim is for this openness to be a permanent feature of public life — once you have taken a decision, you can't change it, so there is no point in trying to hide anything!
For massive projects, the amount of information published is quite exhaustive. However, this is not always necessary, and instead, they are held on a portal that shows which organisations have tendered for them and whether any bids have been received. This ensures that the contracting process for smaller projects is still open, but it minimises the risk of exposing commercially sensitive information about these smaller projects.
What are some success stories that were achieved through open contracting?
Open contracting has reduced fraud in the tendering process, helped ensure that contracts are awarded on merit rather than by influence or corruption, and prevented the loss of public funds through better value for money. The process has also helped create a more responsive and efficient public sector.
What are the next steps towards open contracting in Estonia?
The Government of Estonia committed to making further improvements to its Open Contracting data by doing the following:
- Publishing geographical coordinates, allowing mapping of projects
- Making data downloadable (REST API)
How did Estonia become an open contracting leader?
Estonia's leadership position is due to several factors: Government buy-in. The Government is committed to Open Data and Open Government. It wants decisions to be based on the best available information rather than personal or political opinion or bias. Estonia's Public Services Reform has also created an open framework that enables other sectors to benefit from these principles, which are then applied in new areas of public service provision.
Estonia has made significant progress, but work is still to be done. The Estonian Open Contracting Community is committed to working with its partners to continue the improvement of our open data.
Further Reading:
Estonia Government CTO: Open Data Is No Free Lunch
Open Government Partnership: Estonia
Why Open Contracting is essential to open Government
Open Contracting and Public Procurement
How transparent is the process of open contracting in Uganda? How does it work at national and local levels?
On a national level, all information on tender documents is typically openly available for viewing and submitting bids on procuring entity websites and on the government procurement portal.
At a local government level, information is not as readily available. In some cases, it is possible to view this information if someone knows the right person who works in that department or is somehow able to get access to a physical copy of the tender documents. Unfortunately, this is not always available, and you have to go with whatever information you can find on various local government websites and noticeboards.
How CSOs help governments enhance procurement transparency and accountability.
Awareness of the importance of open contracting through training, conferences, seminars or workshops can help to raise awareness within Government at all levels. CSOs are already doing this by bringing together stakeholders from different departments to participate in activities that will highlight this importance. In addition, citizen engagement with their local governments on this issue can be helpful to get information out there.
The future of open contracting in Uganda is bright, with the government buy-in to be transparent by default. The Africa Freedom of Information Centre-AFIC, through its partnership with Open Contracting Partnership-OCP and support from Democratic Governance Facility -DGF, has worked hard on aligning the Government Procurement Portal so that all data published through it will follow one standard — OCDS! They are also currently working together with CoST Uganda to make the portal OC4IDS compliant.
Transparency International Uganda has worked with PPDA to scale up Open Contracting in the health sector by creating a portal dedicated to publishing health-related procurements. Now more than ever (COVID-19 pandemic), access to health information is more critical.
How did Uganda become an open contracting leader?
I can't say we are leaders in the process; however, we have come a long way towards openness and transparency in procuring goods, works and services. Apart from national developments that have introduced e-procurement into the procurement process, local governments are also making efforts to be more open through the government procurement portal.
It is still early in Uganda in terms of institutionalisation of Open Contracting, but these are promising signs for the future.
Concluding remarks on the value of collaboration in achieving good governance in Uganda
There is value in collaboration, sharing experiences and ideas on opening up Government contracting. Of course, there are challenges in each country with their peculiarities, but there is also the opportunity for cross-learning across countries through forums like this. The Open Contracting Partnership provides an excellent platform to bring these people together. I am heartened by the support of the Open Contracting Partnership in Uganda and, more so, the regional one in East Africa.
