What comes to mind when you think of procurement reform in Uganda’s road sector? And what do you think of when you hear Independent Parallel Bid Evaluations (IPBE)? Maybe you’re about to switch off because you think procurement reform and IPBE are dull ...
Technical it may be (meticulous and unavoidably procedural, too), but the IPBE work we’re carrying out with the Uganda National Roads Authority is transforming parts of the country’s institutions and infrastructure. The costs of building, rehabilitating and maintaining a road are falling. The quality of those roads is improving. The authority’s confidence in maintaining a fair and transparent bidding process is rising. As a direct result of that, private sector contractors are energised and encouraged to get involved
We’re carrying out the evaluations at our headquarters in Sutton, but the impact is quickly travelling the 4,000m to Uganda. Here are a few examples of how:
Cost
One clear impact of the work is the falling cost of road works since the IPBE contract: before the contract, one kilometre of road cost $828,935 to upgrade, $390,836 to rehabilitate and $16,332 to maintain. After IPBE had been underway for two years, those numbers fell by over 15% to $716,106 to upgrade, $335,570 to rehabilitate and $13,935 to maintain, improving value for money and highlighting increasing competition among the construction companies involved.
Credibility
The project, which lasted from 2012 to 2015, was funded by the Department for International Development (DfID). Its assessments of the work have honed in on the institutional improvements taking place. DfID’s annual report stated: “The IPBE facility managed by Crown Agents […] is helping to build the credibility of UNRA as an institution and reduce the length of the procurement process caused by unnecessary administrative reviews and unsubstantiated complaints.”
The work is helping UNRA to take a firmer stance on procurement and raise its own status with its clients and stakeholders. By carrying out the IPBEs, we’ve helped UNRA to strengthen its own ability to manage professional tender processes. It’s more self-assured and is earning the confidence and increased participation of bidders. The knock-on effect of this is improved value for money and return on investment being made in the country’s roads.
Confidence
As UNRA’s evaluation teams came to understand what was coming out of the IPBEs, they were motivated to improve the quality of their evaluations and their reports. Soon after the start of the work, the number of requests for administrative review dropped significantly. This was because UNRA’s decision makers had greater confidence in awarding contracts, making contract awards clearer and fairer and the grounds for the decisions being made could be clearly communicated to bidders. The result of this is that more private sector road contractors are submitting tenders, knowing that decisions are not being based on cronyism or other corrupt practices.
Continuity
All the lessons from the IPBEs have been fed into refining and improving the quality of UNRA’s bidding documents. They’re now producing high quality documentation and reference material, providing clarity and consistency for the bidders. Within each bid evaluation report, we provided UNRA with constructive comments on the quality of their requests for proposals and other bidding documents, allowing them to iron out inconsistencies and publish clearer literature. These comments have also been fed back into a separate programme that produced a procurement procedures manual for UNRA.
***
As the project progressed, we strongly advised DfID and UNRA that the IPBE work would only be truly effective if it was supported by larger scale reform of the procurement and disposal unit of UNRA as a whole. While IPBE services can address deficiencies within a procurement unit, implementing it on its own is a treatment for the symptoms of a problem: a long-term solution must penetrate right down to the cause of the need for reform and cure it at the very core. In mid-2015, a decision was made to restructure the organisation with the intention of rebuilding it from scratch. Having proven our expertise in procurement through the IPBE work and with a long track record of work in Uganda, DfID engaged us in a direct contract to undertake all procurement services for UNRA while the rebuilding is underway.
The benefits of IPBE have already captured the attention of donors and other high-spending ministries within the government of Uganda. The need for IPBE isn’t unique to Uganda either – many other governments can and need to benefit from it as well. As DfID’s annual review of the work states: “[IPBE] has greatly improved procurement transparency at UNRA, real and perceived, drastically reducing the administrative reviews that had previously bogged down several projects.” A 2015 ODI report on the Uganda road sector identified IPBE as an area for continued roll-out and that an enduring government-funded equivalent needs to be established. It needs a long-term vision and we will continue to work with UNRA while its reorganisation is underway to help them work towards their ambitions.
Louise Cathro has more than 10 years’ experience as a development project manager, running programmes in Africa and Asia for donors including DfID and the World Bank.
Content on this page is paid for and provided by Crown Agents, a sponsor of the Guardian Global Development Professionals Network.
