PPDA moves to reduce corruption in procurement
Public Procurement and Disposal of Assets Authority (PPDA) has stepped up efforts to curb corruption by partnering Deloitte’s Tip Offs Anonymous, an ethics hotline where informants can report malpractices.
Speaking on Thursday in Lilongwe during the strategic launch of the partnership, PPDA director general Edington Chilapondwa acknowledged the huge role that his institution has to ensure that corrupt practices in public procurement are curbed.
He said: “The size of corruption in public procurement can best be described by the Anti-Corruption Bureau and in most cases, the graft-busting agency’s the director general in her statements says that out of the cases she handles in her office, public procurement corrupt practices take well over 70 percent.
“This shows that we have a duty to do in public procurement to ensure that we kill out these corrupt practices in public procurement.”
Chilapondwa said PPDA wants to ensure that whatever is happening in government ministries, departments and agencies is transparent by giving freedom to stakeholders to report any corrupt or fraudulent acts.
He said this is not only critical to the Malawi 2063, the country’s long-term development plan, but also key to the successful implementation of the national budget.
“Effective public procurement policies can be achieved if it is premised on basic procurement principles of transparency, accountability, fairness, value for money and competition. Transparency must always be the central government’s principle,” said Chilapondwa.
In her remarks, Deloitte’s Tip Offs Anonymous manager Barbara Kulemeka said that they have been offering the service for over 13 years and their stronghold is the ability to keep informants’ identity anonymous.
She also said Tip-offs anonymous is one of the most effective ways of detecting fraud and corruption.
Kulemeka said they follow up tip-offs with a report sent to the institution concerned so that they investigate the matter.
“We do not monitor the conclusion of the cases, but we just submit the reports to the organisations concerned for them to do the investigations on their own,” she said.
Through the partnership, PPDA will look at reports on flouting procedures, conflict of interest, disclosure of sensitive and privileged information, corruption, kickbacks and collusion, contract and procurement fraud and fast-tracking of registration processes and overriding policies.
