Maravi

Procurement fraud

Procurement fraud
By The Post
Tue 23 Nov. 2010, 04:00 CAT

PROCUREMENT fraud is one of the most progressive forms of corruption and abuse of office that afflict our country.

This type of corruption is a dangerous cancer that can destroy the very fabric of our nation if left unchecked. What makes tender or procurement-related corruption very virulent is its spread in the public sector system. It is possible for the highest government officer as well as the lowest to take part in all sorts of tender rigging activities.

The loser is the taxpayer and all our people who look to government for the provision of services and social amenities. Services that should easily be provided at reasonable cost end up costing the public purse huge amounts of money. There would be some mitigation against this virulent corruption if the services provided were of a quality that satisfied our people. But the very nature of corruption is such that those who bribe public officers to rig the process and award them undeserved public contracts end up having to factor into their costs the bribes that they give. The result is that more often than not, they end up delivering very shoddy service to our people. In the long run, the public purse ends up paying many times for the same service.

This is something that is very common in the road sector. Some roads have been constructed at huge cost and yet they don’t even last. Some of them have been known to last no more than a couple of rainy seasons before huge potholes emerge and the road which was recently inaugurated becomes impassable. The question is: why? We may be a poor country in some respects but the technology to construct roads which are to conform to international standards is readily available. As a country, we have very well qualified engineers who could supervise the construction of these roads and produce stunning results. The question is: why are we continuing to produce poor roads? Huge amounts of money have continued to pour into the construction of various infrastructure in our country and roads are just one of them. We do not seem to be getting to the bottom of this problem. If we do not factor corruption into what is going on in the road sector, it is impossible to understand why so much nonsense is happening.

Why would decent, self-respecting professionals go and hire a road construction company that does not even employ one road engineer? But this is what is happening.

When people like Southern Province minister Elijah Muchima complain about the delays in service delivery due to slow procurement processes, they need to ask themselves if indeed that is the whole problem. The process is slow or fast depending on the intended outcome. Sometimes the tendering process is fast-tracked to facilitate the corrupt wishes of big people and their children. The same process can be slowed down to facilitate the appetites for corruption for small people in the system who are trying to find a way of making sure that all the benefits do not just go to the big people.

Muchima says that the tendering system sometimes gives less desired services. He also states that in his experience, there are things like classrooms which are being built today but tomorrow they have cracks but those built long ago have no cracks. According to him, the problem is the professionalism of the builders. We do not agree with Muchima. We do not think that the builders of these classrooms or other infrastructure are producing shoddy work merely because they are incompetent. The problem is much more complex than that. It is a matter of corruption having taken over the whole procurement system for government and all public works.

We continue to marvel that our government would like us to believe that it is costing them between five and ten million dollars to construct a secondary school. Not too long ago, they were telling us that the cost of constructing the schools they were celebrating was K26 billion. But today, those same projects are in the K40 billion range. This is in a country where we are being told that the economy is doing so well and inflation is in the region of 8 per cent per annum. In a country where inflation is at 8 per cent, how do you explain the escalation of the cost of constructing a school from K26 billion to about K45 billion? Where has this nearly 80 per cent escalation of cost come from? In the first place, the price at which the schools were being constructed was outrageously high. That notwithstanding, Rupiah Banda and his minions have found a way of increasing that price by 70 to 80 per cent. How? Why?

These incredible cost fluctuations are a function of corruption. Somebody somewhere is eating. This is a classical example of systemic procurement fraud which is costing our country millions of dollars every year.

This is probably what explains the vigour with which the decision to remove the offence of abuse of office from the Anti Corruption Commission Act is being pursued. We say this because anybody with average political sense would know that the cause that Rupiah and his minions are pursuing in relation to abuse of office is likely to cost them dearly in elections next year. It is also likely to cost them the support of many cooperating partners and foreign governments of goodwill. In spite of this, Rupiah is pushing ahead as though tomorrow does not matter. Why?

It is clear that people have been acquiring all sorts of wealth, properties and other goods which they cannot justify from their legitimate income. Commissions and other fees for all kinds of introductions, access to offices of power are now commonplace. Important tenders are being decided in restaurants and nightclubs by people who are not supposed to have anything to do with government power. Ministers and other government officers who were virtually bankrupt the day before they were appointed are suddenly exceedingly wealthy. How are they going to explain this miraculous transformation in purely business and economic terms? For this reason, it is important that they kill the law that is likely to catch them. But we all should know that you can run but you cannot hide. These people who think they can steal from our people and get away with it will wake up to a rude shock one of these days.

Labels: CORRUPTION

posted by MrK @ 3:47 AM