Public procurement and corruption in Bangladesh: confronting the challenges and opportunities

Public procurement has been a neglected area of academic research yet it is a major function of government. Policy makers, professionals and academics are aware of the importance of public procurement in facilitating government operations in both developed and developing new democracies like Bangladesh. Governance and corruption reforms have become a central issue in many recent elections, and because of democratic reforms, new leaders dedicated to fighting corruption and improving public administration are attaining power as never before. This paper utilizes documents from electronic databases, a literature survey on websites of specialized agencies and analysis of the existing situation in Bangladesh to discuss public procurement.

The paper presents the following problems found by the 2002 World Bank assessment of procurement in Bangladesh which concluded that the implementation is far from satisfactory:

• Poor advertisement
• Short bidding periods
• Poor specifications
• Nondisclosure of selection criteria
• Award of contract by lottery
• One-sided contract documents
• Negotiation with all bidders
• Rebidding without adequate grounds
• Other miscellaneous irregularities
• Corruption and outside influence.

The paper recommends that Bangladesh should emulate the following measures from various countries to prevent corruption in public procurement:

• Establish an anti-corruption bureau like has been done in Hong Kong and Singapore
• Adopt a voter education program similar to the one in Thailand
• In order to empower civil society to facilitate improvements in the quality of local governance, "Report Cards" by citizens, on the various public services provided by local governments should be established as has been done in Bangalore
• Seoul's city administration introduced the "Online Procedures Enhancement for Civil Applications" (OPEN) system which should be emulated
• Uganda’s capacity building strategies have improved the public procurement systems
• In Indonesia anti corruption initiatives have been implemented as part of judicial reform and proved to be effective in combating corruption
• Training of procurement professionals must be blended with competency, good relationships, management and communication skills and an ability to think laterally.

The paper concludes that promoting transparency and accountability, capable and competent public administration, and the rule of law must be at the forefront of development policies. The roles of both donors and government procurements agencies need to be enhanced. The World Bank suggests that deregulation and expansion of markets, public arrangement, legal and judicial reform and transparent procurement management are important to reduce corruption.