Centralised ads, procurement a conduit for graft, slows services

The formation of Government Advertising Agency (GAA) in July 2015 to coordinate the government’s advertising was on the premise that the advertisements had been previously done without proper policy guidelines.

In August 2018, however, the ICT ministry was reported to owe the media close to Sh2.5 billion, which saw the Director of Public Prosecution, Noordin Haji, approve the prosecution of 22 suspects over the scandal.

ECONOMIC DANGERS

The introduction of the GAA has had the effect of slowing the purchasing of media space and airtime. Whereas the accounting officers of the public entities are required to submit to the agency their quarterly advertisement plans 15 days to the commencement of every quarter for planning and budgeting, this has not curbed the delay.

There has also been delay in advertisement processing due to lack of budget transparency in its operations. The budgetary allocation for advertisement to individual public agencies is not known by them in advance. Another challenge is delay in payment of space to media houses by the GAA.

But even before the ink dries up on the GAA scandal, the government, last year, came up with another drastic policy that centralised procurement for information and communication technology supplies for all ministries and parastatals with the ICT ministry. Media reports say the ministry has identified 25 companies which will supply 41 items across the government. These are set to gobble up to Sh18 billion of the ICT budgets.

However, an analysis of the implication of this policy shows that it is fraught with legal and economic dangers.

RENT SEEKING

First, it undermines the national values and principles of governance under Article 10 of the Constitution and the Principles of Procurement of Goods and Services (227(1)).

Notably, the Constitution requires procurement to be done in a fair, equitable, transparent, competitive and cost-effective manner. This is complemented by the Public Procurement and Asset Disposal Act 2015, whose guiding principles include maximisation of value for money and promotion of local industries.

Evidently, while the objective of this policy was stated as enabling the government to procure ICT goods and services at lower rates, the opposite is likely to happen due to limited competition, with the potential of killing small- and medium-sized enterprises.

Secondly, it is likely to promote rent seeking by public officers. Having a few officers handling huge amounts of money with the sole discretion of deciding the winners is a recipe for corruption and goes against the government’s anti-corruption efforts.

Thirdly, technology has become part of our lives and central to service delivery in Kenya. Indeed, according to the Access to Information Act 2016, all public bodies are required to have digitalised their systems by September 21.

COUNTER-PRODUCTIVE

Accordingly, when you place an important aspect such as technology in a system that is susceptible to delay, rent seeking and other challenges, then service delivery is likely to be affected.

Further, a pertinent question can be raised on the extent to which the public was involved in the development of this policy.

Fourthly, one of the principles in coming up with a new policy is usually the mischief to be cured or remedied. If the mischief was inflated cost of goods and services procured or lack of competition or unfairness in procurement, can it be said that the centralisation was the cure? The answer is No.

It is even worrying that the government centralised the ICT procurement in spite of the constitutional approach of decentralisation of power and resources. Evidently, this policy is counter-productive and brings its share of challenges.

There is a need to bring the policy to conformity with the Constitution and the various laws in order to promote efficiency, accountability and prudent use of resources.

Mr Opany is a development communication specialist. [email protected]