1. “Public Procurements in Practice”
December 14th 2010

2. The Importance of Procurement Monitoring
Public procurement affects all aspects of people’s lives and assumes a large share of government budgets
The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has estimated the value of government procurement markets worldwide to be US $ 2 trillion annually
Transparency International (TI) estimates that damage from corruption on public procurement can represent on average 10 to 25% of a contract’s value
Corruption in public procurement is not just about money: it costs lives
Examples of corruption costing lives:
When the execution of a construction contract is flawed leading to a building collapse, or when substandard or forfeited medicines fail to attend to people‘s health needs. This can occur in both developing and developed countries.

3. Who Can Monitor?
Everyone – from individual citizens to high level government officials – can play a role in ensuring that tax payers’ money spent on procurement delivers good quality services at a fair economic cost for all
Governments and other control bodies alone do not have the capacity to monitor all procurement processes effectively
Civil society can play an important role in bringing independence to procurement monitoring
The inclusion of all stakeholders acts to broaden and strengthen procurement monitoring
TI has followed this approach for over 15 years

4. The Integrity Pact
One of TI’s flagship tools - developed to help governments, businesses and civil society fight corruption in the field of public contracting
Agreement between government and all bidders for a (public sector) contract so that neither side will pay, offer, demand or accept bribes
Used successfully in more than 15 countries around the world in the last 10 years, in all sectors and for all types of contracts
Some Examples:
Germany – Berlin Schönefeld new international airport, a project worth € 2.4 billion
Latvia – The construction of the National Library - Ministry of Culture/New Three Brothers Agency
Mexico – IPs have been used in nearly 100 contracts worth approximately US $ 30 billion in different sectors
TI, in collaboration with the Water Integrity Network (WIN), have recently published ‘Integrity Pacts in the Water Sector: An implementation guide for government officials regarding’.

5. Other Examples of Procurement Monitoring
Bulgaria : Expert Monitoring Group
Main sources of information to carry out monitoring: audit reports of the National Audit office and State Agency for Financial Inspection and interviews with experts
Expert Monitoring Group (EMG) formed by public procurement experts and NGO representatives focus on 3 categories;
(i) methodology indicators;
(ii) data collection tools; and
(iii) on the spot monitoring
Monitored 13 conditions to be determined using 28 standard indicators of transparency and accountability
Feedback on results to government and advocacy for procurement reform

6. Other Examples of Procurement Monitoring
Argentina : Public Hearings
The responsible authority convenes citizens, businesses, experts; presents details of project and procurement provisions; and enables participants to express their suggestions and objections
Recommendations to be taken into account and incorporated where appropriate
Open to citizens from all backgrounds, ages and interests
Implemented primarily for city/local government projects
wider involvement enables wider scrutiny on the behaviour of contracting parties both during the bidding process and contract execution
Some public hearings can attract close to 500 attendees

7. Procurement Monitoring Innovation
TI is constantly working to find new ways to monitor procurement processes more effectively
The set of indicators developed by TI Serbia to measure performance of the public procurement system is testament to this
The whole TI movement expects to learn from Serbia, and adapt and apply the indicators to other countries and contexts
We also hope the project will raise particular interest in the European context