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Transparency

Transparency International’s Minimum Standards for Public Contracting

March 2005 - This is an edited version of the Standards. The complete text can be found in the Transparency International Global Corruption Report 2005, pages 4-6.

Public procurement authorities should:

1. Implement a code of conduct that commits the contracting authority and its employees to a strict anticorruption policy. The policy should take into account possible conflicts of interest, provide mechanisms for reporting corruption and protect whistleblowers.

2. Allow a company to tender only if it has implemented a code of conduct that commits the company and its employees to a strict anti-corruption policy.

3. Maintain a blacklist of companies for which there is sufficient evidence of their involvement in corrupt activities. Debar blacklisted companies from tendering for the authority’s projects for a specified period of time.

4. Ensure that all contracts between the authority and its contractors, suppliers and service providers require the parties to comply with strict anti-corruption policies. This may best be achieved by requiring the use of a project integrity pact committing the authority and bidding companies to refrain from bribery.

5. Ensure that public contracts above a low threshold are subject to open competitive bidding.

6. Provide all bidders, and preferably also the general public, with easy access to information about all phases of the contracting process, including the selection and evaluation processes and the terms and conditions of the contract and any amendments.

7. Ensure that no bidder is given access to privileged information at any stage of the contracting process, especially information relating to the selection process.

8. Allow bidders sufficient time for bid preparation and for pre-qualification requirements when these
apply.

9. Ensure that contract ‘change’ orders that alter the price or description of work beyond a cumulative threshold are monitored at a high level, preferably by the decision-making body that awarded the contract.

10. Ensure that internal and external control and auditing bodies are independent and functioning effectively, and that their reports are accessible to the public. Any unreasonable delays in project execution should trigger additional control activities.

11. Separate key functions to ensure that responsibility for demand assessment, preparation, selection, contracting, supervision and control of a project is assigned to separate bodies.

12. Apply standard office safeguards, such as the use of committees at decision-making points and rotation of staff in sensitive positions. Staff responsible for procurement processes should be well trained and adequately remunerated.

13. Promote the participation of civil society organisations as independent monitors of both the tender and execution of projects.