Kenya turns to technology to fight corruption in the tendering process

The Kenyan government is in the process of developing an online procurement system to fight tender corruption. The system dubbed ‘Procure to Pay (P2P)’ is scheduled for launch for July 2014, by the country’s treasury, and is planned to be part of Kenya’s Integrated Financial Management Information System (IFMIS), which connects government ministries, agencies and all 47 counties.

This was revealed by Treasury IFMIS department director, Jerome Ochieng, who said corruption affects all aspects of the tendering process and supply chain. Ochieng went on to say, “In procurement, when you minimize the possibility of suppliers interacting with the people who are buying, you minimize elements of corruption.”

Dickson Kamau, a System Analyst at IT firm Symphony, agreed that automation could save government a lot of money but only if the systems are foolproof and the rules are strictly adhered to. Kamau told ITWeb Africa, “I think it is a good idea to automate most, if not all, of government services, where exchange of money is involved.”

Kamau also stated, “This ensures that authorities can be able to track every single transaction, which is extremely hard with our current manual systems.” Kamau said that manual systems cost the Kenyan government up to $1 billion, and this is a value that could be brought down by 90% to $100 million with automation.

Regarding the automation of the tendering process, Kamau welcomed the idea, but went ahead to caution that this could also be another loophole of elevating corruption to the next level with what he dubbed ‘technology-assisted corruption.’
“We have seen the government come up with brilliant automation initiatives, only for them to turn and bite the government back with failed online systems that are prone to constant attacks, making them even more expensive to maintain,” said Kamau.

Furthermore, Kamau urged the government to first ensure that the systems are developed to the highest industry standards to prevent these attacks, and also build a culture change among its workers, before fully launching any automated service. Finally, he concluded, “This is the only way that we will see the fruits of automation in our government services.”

Source: ITWeb Africa