Procurement abuse must stop

An investigation by the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) office has reportedly found irregularities in the purchase of electrical substation equipment and generators for 11 buildings in the housing project at the Rooppur Nuclear Power Plant, raising concerns about corruption in the public procurement sector. According to a recent report by Prothom Alo, equipment officially valued at around Tk 27 crore was billed at Tk 214 crore, resulting in excess expenditure of around Tk 187 crore. This is an egregious example of procurement abuse in a government project, and one cannot help but wonder how deeply entrenched corruption must be in our country for such staggering irregularities to occur in a single public project.

The scheme was carried out with an extraordinary sophistication that is particularly troubling. It was in 2017 that the Pabna Public Works Division invited tenders through the electronic Government Procurement (e-GP) system for external electrification work. According to the audit report, the contractors allegedly increased the prices of specific high-value items such as electrical substation equipment and generators while reducing the prices of other components. This resulted in the total tender price remaining “acceptable” in the official estimate. The audit further revealed that the tender evaluation committee failed to seek explanations for the inflated prices, despite government procurement rules requiring them to do so. There was also no evidence that an approved estimate committee had prepared the official estimates. All of this begs an uncomfortable question about whether the safeguards built into the procurement system were deliberately ignored.

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Public procurement in Bangladesh has long been prone to irregularities. Despite the introduction of the e-GP in 2012 to ensure fair competition and to reduce irregularities, stakeholders have often called the procurement rules discriminatory. There are also allegations that the existing rules do not work well to ensure that the objectives of the e-GP are achieved, and the recent audit from the Rooppur housing project bears testament to this concern. Research further suggested that the top 5 percent of contractors control nearly 30 percent of e-contracts. This clearly points to possible manipulation of the system. The question is: how much longer should public funds be siphoned off through procurement irregularities while those responsible continue to evade consequences?

The authorities concerned must provide answers, and a thorough and impartial investigation into the Rooppur irregularities must be conducted to hold accountable those responsible. Unless the government can ensure that political influence and favouritism find no place in procurement processes, public resources will continue to be squandered and public trust in state institutions will continue to erode.