CoST Uganda Chapter is delighted to announce support of DFID’s Business Integrity Initiative for a project, “Promoting fair business practices by both the government and private sectors in Uganda”. The grant will run fromJanuary – December 2020.
Procurement of public infrastructure projects is one of the areas where the public sector and the private sector interact financially- a candidate for corrupt activity, cronyism, and favouritism, as well as outright bribery. Corruption in procurement in Uganda manifests itself in unnecessary projects, substandard work or unnecessarily expensive work; the diversion of resources; and unjustified or unexpected price increases. An integrity survey by the Public Procurement and Disposal of Assets Authority (PPDA) found that 69.8% of service providers surveyed agreed that corruption influenced procurement while figures presented by the Inspectorate of Government reveal that corruption in public contracting amounts to 9.4% of the total value of contracts. This is equivalent to 2.08 trillion or USD 571.8 million. CoST Uganda Assurance reports have consistently revealed cost and time overruns among other issues.
The intervention seeks to promote fair business practices by both the government and private sector by advocating for better disclosure through the Open Contracting for Infrastructure Data Standard, data use and building trust between government and private sector practitioners.
This action aims to achieve three objectives;
- To increase disclosed data to 60 points as per the IDS standards.
- To increase competition in doing business with government agencies
- To strengthen transparency in procurement processes of infrastructure projects.
CoST Uganda is hosted by the Africa Freedom of Information Centre (AFIC), the largest civil society network promotion citizen’s right of access to information, open contracting and open government in Africa.
