[open-government] OpenGov Voices: How Georgia is handling procurement transparency

Fri Jan 17 14:12:09 UTC 2014

Fyi everyone, this is the first post in a mini-series about the procurement
system of Georgia and the amazing work of the local Transparency
International chapter.

http://sunlightfoundation.com/blog/2014/01/16/opengov-voices-how-georgia-is-handling-procurement-transparency/

OpenGov Voices: How Georgia is handling procurement
transparency<http://sunlightfoundation.com/blog/2014/01/16/opengov-voices-how-georgia-is-handling-procurement-transparency/>
by guest author Mathias Huter and guest author Giorgi ChanturiaJAN. 16,
2014, 11:25 A.M.

*Disclaimer: The opinions expressed by the guest blogger and those
providing comments are theirs alone and do not reflect the opinions of the
Sunlight Foundation or any employee thereof. Sunlight Foundation is not
responsible for the accuracy of any of the information within the guest
blog.*

*This is the first post in a mini-series about TI Georgia's work.*
[image: A picture of Mathias Huter -- a Project Manager at Transparency
International Georgia]Mathias Huter -- a Project Manager at Transparency
International Georgia. Image courtesy of Transparency International
Georgia.[image:
A picture of Giorgi Chanturia -- an analyst at Transparency International
Georgia]Giorgi Chanturia -- an Analyst at Transparency International
Georgia. Image courtesy of Transparency International Georgia.

Ten years ago, residents of Georgia’s capital Tbilisi only had a few hours
of electricity a day. Today, the country has one of the most transparent
online systems for government procurement in the world.

At first glimpse, public procurement may not appear to be a sexy issue. But
in a country like Georgia, public contracting accounts for 40 per
cent<http://transparency.ge/en/simplified-procurement> of
all government spending and about 10.6 per cent of the country’s GDP (Gross
Domestic Product). And that makes it a big deal.

Up until the end of 2010, Georgia had a highly inefficient, bureaucratic
and completely opaque procurement system and the public was not able to
access any government procurement documents. This was mainly because in
many cases, documents were not even properly archived.

This prompted the creation of a fully electronic procurement
platform<http://procurement.gov.ge/index.php?sec_id=1&lang_id=ENG> by
the Procurement
Agency<http://procurement.gov.ge/index.php?sec_id=1&lang_id=ENG>.
The platform, which was developed in-house, cost just over a million US
dollars and was launched within a year. The investment also saved Georgian
taxpayers some money.

Now, (and for the past three years) all tendered government purchases in
Georgia are conducted through one centralized e-procurement bidding
platform<https://tenders.procurement.gov.ge/> which
is operated by the Competition and State Procurement
Agency<http://procurement.gov.ge/>
.

The platform has succeeded in increasing transparency in government
procurement<http://procurement.gov.ge/index.php?lang_id=ENG&sec_id=8&info_id=761>
by
eliminating a paper-based, bureaucratic system (often riddled with
opaqueness and corruption) and turning it into a more efficient operation.
This has made it one of the most transparent government systems in the
world. At leastthat we know of <http://transparency.ge/en/node/3117>.

Today, Georgians and others interested in government procurement can find
information online including tender documentation, documents submitted by
bidders, participating bidders, their bids and all signed and amended
contracts. Also included on the platform is information on all whitelisted
companies that have been reliable in the past and those that have been
blacklisted and barred from bidding for public contracts for a year. The
website also allows interested bidders to request for clarification on
tender documents. These requests are usually answered by a procurement
officer on the website before any bidding starts.

Additionally, users of the procurement website can also file online
complaints if there has been a violation of the law.
[image: An image of Tender documents before they were added to the
e-procurement website.]Tender documents in the hallways of the Georgia
State Procurement Agency in 2010.

Such complaints can put a tender on hold for up to ten days – until a
dispute review board which includes a representative from Transparency
International Georgia, has discussed the complaints and decided on how to
proceed. Again, all complaints and decisions by this Board are published
online <https://tenders.procurement.gov.ge/dispute/>.

Furthermore, the central government’s bank account is linked to the system.
This linkage allows the public to see transactions made by government
entities (who have to upload a procurement plan with the purchases they
have budgeted for) and the days these transactions were made.

Having individual tenders is great. But in order to get the full picture,
one needs aggregate data. So we decided to start scraping the procurement
website and in June 2013, Transparency International Georgia launched
TenderMonitor.ge <http://tendermonitor.ge/en> -- an
open-source<https://github.com/tigeorgia/e-procurement-site>
procurement
monitoring and analytics portal  which is also partly available in English.
Every night, we take the data from the government’s central e-procurement
website and repackage it into more user-friendly formats then upload it to
TenderMonitor.ge <http://tendermonitor.ge/en>.

That way, we are able to generate profiles of procurement transactions of all
government agencies<http://tendermonitor.ge/en/organization/search_procurer?code=&commit=Search&direction=desc&org_type=&procurer_search_name=&sort=total_offered_contract_value&utf8=%E2%9C%93>and
of all the companies<http://tendermonitor.ge/en/organization/search?address=&bw_list=&city=&code=&commit=Search&direction=desc&email=&org_type=&phone_number=&sort=total_won_contract_value&supplier_search_name=&utf8=%E2%9C%93>
that
bid for public contracts. We can now generate aggregate statistical data on
what the government spends money on. This service was not available before.

Users can download bulk data and set up free email alerts – that way, a
reporter can get an email every time the local municipality announces or
awards a larger contract. By so doing, we manage to get a fair amount of
online traffic to our portal. The fact that the procurement agency endorsed
it and prominently links to TenderMonitor.ge <http://tendermonitor.ge/en> also
helps.

Even in a small country like Georgia with some 4 million people, government
agencies issue close to 30,000 competitive tenders a year. The next
challenge is to develop methodologies that help in identifying tenders that
face increased risks for corruption, based on patterns in the data, so that
reporters and anti-corruption activists or government investigators can
develop analysis and tell stories that inform the public more about
transparent government procurement.

Once more countries start introducing e-procurement – hopefully with APIs
(Application Programming Interface) associated with the platforms – it will
become easier to identify corruption and wasteful spending in government.
This perhaps will be a good first step towards providing transparent
procurement data that allows for things such as comparing how much
different governments pay for say a car made by the same manufacturer.
*This guest post was written by Mathias Huter and Giorgi Chanturia of
Transparency International Georgia -- a non governmental organization
committed to combating corruption in Georgia through the promotion of
transparency and accountability Mathias is a project manager while Giorgi
is an Analyst at Transparency International. You can reach Mathias
at mathias at transparency.ge
<http://sunlightfoundation.com/blog/2014/01/16/opengov-voices-how-georgia-is-handling-procurement-transparency/mathias@transparency.ge>
and
Giorgi at giorgich at transparency.ge
<http://sunlightfoundation.com/blog/2014/01/16/opengov-voices-how-georgia-is-handling-procurement-transparency/giorgich@transparency.ge>.*

*Interested in writing a guest blog for Sunlight? Email us
atguestblog at sunlightfoundation.com <guestblog at sunlightfoundation.com>*

-- 
Júlia Keserű
International Program Coordinator

1818 N Street NW, Suite 300
Washington, DC 20036
(1) 202-742-1520 *280

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