Role of Open Contracting in Transparency and Accountability Agenda in Uganda: Presentation at the ODDC research event in Kampala

1. By
Mutabazi Sam Stewart
Executive Director
Uganda Road Sector Support Initiative (URSSI)
Email: info@ugandaroadsector.org
A Presentation at the Dissemination Workshop of the Uganda, Kenya Case study On Open
Data, Transparency And Accountability
Hotel Africana 5th June 2014
The Role of Open Contracting in
Transparency and Accountability Agenda
in Uganda

2.  Open contracting refers to norms and practices that lead
to increased disclosure and participation and information
availability in public contracting. Open contracting/open
data is a new phenomenon.
 Open contracting is a new chapter on a new frontier of
empowering citizens, reducing the secrecy surrounding
government projects and therefore challenging the age old
bureaucratic tendencies of government holding back
information that belongs to the citizens in the first place.
 The opposite of open contracting is opaque contracting
which as the name suggests means non-transparent
contracting.
Introduction

3.  Open contracting will not necessarily lead to outright accountability
from the onset. It is likely to be a long process for governments
especially in Africa to embrace open contracting. Naturally
individuals and institutions find it difficult to be open.
 It takes convincing, negotiations for them to know that if they mean
well they must open up because they “have nothing to hide”. For
open contracting to be meaningful there must be recognition and
convergence of opinion that the agenda of government is the
agenda of the citizens and that the information government is
holding is doing so in trust of the wider public.
 Those seeking for this information on the other hand must be
willing to use it for the furtherance and improvement of best
practices and value for money.
Are governments ready to be open?

4.  Why did it take this long for the global world to embrace
open contracting? One may argue that the time for open
contracting had not come. The other reason could be that
everyone was in a confortable zone fearing that disclosure
could lead to unintended results /repercussions.
 The most probable reason is that global trends today
dictate that individuals and institutions have to share
information for the common good. The inter linkage of
different actors worldwide mandate everyone to become
more responsible for the resources they are entrusted
with.
Open Contracting a New Innovation?

5.  As time will tell, open government (full disclosure) is likely
to be one of the greatest global movements that will have
far reaching impact on universal poverty reduction and
creating a fairer world economically. Openness will lead to
greater efficiency and improved service delivery.
 Citizens will be empowered to demand disclosure of public
contracts. Once the message “Government only acts as a
custodian of public resources and in turn, signs contracts
on behalf of citizens” is appreciated by everyone, greater
transparency will be realized.
Future of Open Contracting

6.  With an increasing population in the world, comes with increasing resources
mainly for the few and less for the majority. The irony is that although the
majority is the poorest, they contribute most to the resources of the world
owned by the few.
 The majority are the labourers on the coffee farms in eastern Uganda, the
masons on a construction site in Zambia, the tea pickers in Kenya highlands
and diamond miners in South Africa.
 All these labourers pay taxes to their respective governments and they
expect better returns in form of Hydro dams, a functioning railway network,
good roads, hospitals and schools. Without open contracting, it will take
long for the labourer mentioned above access these infrastructures.
Open Contracting & Poverty
Reduction

7.  The Policy Brief on potential of open data to impact
resource allocation for poverty eradication in Kenya and
Uganda is an eye opener.
 It correctly observes that Open data exists because of
supply and demand of data. Increased awareness of
availability and accessibility leads to increased demand
which leads to increased accountability and transparency.
 However it needs to clearly make a correlation between
open data and poverty eradication. Although it can be
assumed that open data/contracting can lead to efficient
utilization of resources, the linkage between the two
needs to be further explained for clarity purposes.
Open Contracting & Poverty
Reduction

8.  Uganda loses approximately US $500 Million US to corruption every
year. Of course corruption and lack of disclosure move together like
Siamese twins.
 The total budget for UNRA for FY 2013/14 was UGX 2,198.304bn out
of which UGX 36.53bn was recurrent expenditure, UGX 1,897.138bn
was for Development and UGX 254.440bn for maintanance
 Government of Uganda is willing to embrace and live by open
contracting principles. It is however not yet fully prepared to jump
into the deep end. Civil society is becoming more proactive.
 Proactive disclosure e.g. disclosing information on websites is still
very limited. Most MDA websites take years to be updated and
when they are finally updated sometimes information provided is
not helpful.
Open Contracting Uganda’s Case

9. Poor Access on a New Road

10.  UCMC and URSSI in particular are seeking to demystify
contracts in roads, agriculture, health, extractives etc.
 An empowered citizenry with basic information will go a
long way to demand for services the population is yearning
for.
 Citizens need to be granted an opportunity to get all the
information about a project although they may not
necessarily go into technical details. This helps them to
own the outcome of the project.
The Role of Civil Society in Contract
Monitoring

11.  The role of civil society in contract monitoring cannot be
over emphasized. If contracts are for the welfare of the
people, then civil society which is supposed to be part of
the people must take a leading role in ensuring that
contracts are delivered according to agreed terms.
 Civil society is yet to be fully accepted by government as a
strategic partner in project performance and delivery. It is
for instance important that civil society is represented on
contract committees of various agencies.
The Role of Civil Society in Contract
Monitoring Cont.

12.  Civil society is currently not involved in pre-contract actions or activities.
There is need therefore for CSOs to be part of contracts committees so as to
be part of the contracting process from the onset.
 There is need for capacity building for CSOs and multi-stakeholder coalitions
to create an effective lobbying and influencing platform that can lead to
greater transparency and accountability for public contracts
 Civil society should also recognize the fact that sometimes, agencies provide
information especially on their websites and yet the would-be users either
knowingly or otherwise fail to utilize the information. This is especially so
with organizations with vast websites where “one can easily get lost”
MOFPED has the most active website with very useful information – Is it
because they don’t have contracts.
The Role of Civil Society in Contract
Monitoring Cont.

13.  Government institutions fear the media. They argue
that information put out in the media is not easy to
retract whether false or true.
 It has taken UCMC more than two years to get a
letter from Uganda National Roads Authority (UNRA)
to monitor roads. UNRA was very suspicious about
our intentions until we managed to convince them
that we and them had a similar goal – ensuring value
for money.
Need for Constructive Engagement

14.  Civil society needs to strike a balance to ensure that it
raises issues of concern with government agencies in a
constructive manner but at the same time not
compromising our beliefs and overall objectives.
 It is possible that agencies can promise to address issues
raised by monitors as a gimmick to buy time and to
compromise the monitors. It is imperative that time frames
are agreed upon when issues raised would be addressed
failure of which would lead to other measures being
undertaken.
Need for Constructive Engagement
Cont.

15.  Roads have been getting the largest chunk of the budget
consistently for the last five years. This current financial year up to
16% is dedicated to roads.
 The unit cost of Road construction in Uganda was until recently one
of the highest not only in the region but in the whole of Africa. It
ranged between US $ 1 Million -1.5 Million per Km.
 With the entrance of the Chinese however, the road construction
subsector in Uganda has become a little more competitive with
some projects reporting quotations as low as US$700,000 per Km.
 It had become a common practice by contractors to low priced bid
for projects in order to win the contract only to negotiate for
revision of the same after they have won the contract citing price
fluctuations.
Roads & Open Contracting

16.  Uganda has been known for projects that are never completed on
time. Before the creation of UNRA no single road project had ever
been completed on schedule.
 The famous 21KmKampala Northern Bypass whose construction
started in 2003 was completed almost six years after the expected
date of completion. Even then it was opened due to public pressure;
lights had not been fixed, drainage was not done etc. Yet it remains
one of the most expensive roads in the country to date.
 Why was this project messed up? Because the public did not have
any information about it! The expansion of this road to make it dual
carriage will commence in September 2014.Civil society will be
vigilant to ensure that mistakes under the first phase are not
repeated.
Roads & Open Contracting Cont.

17.  Many players have of recent joined the road construction
subsector in Uganda.
 The quality of the final product notwithstanding, Chinese
construction firms have forced dominant players to revise the
bids downwards. Currently the Chinese are in charge of up to
70% of ongoing major projects in the country.
 The Chinese are also known to deliver projects on time. Fort
portal –Bundibugyo-Lamia road which passes through a
complicated terrain constructed by a Chinese firm CCCC was the
first project of its magnitude in Uganda to be completed ahead
of schedule. Since then, many more have followed.
Competition good for Open
Contracting

18.  Government of Uganda finally accepted to join
Construction Sector Transparency Initiative (CoST)
five years after it had been requested to do so.
 CoST has had enormous impact in countries that
embraced it such as Ethiopia, Zambia Tanzania and
Malawi.
 Civil Society is very optimistic that CoST will have far
reaching impact on project delivery in Uganda in the
medium term.
International Best Practices

19.  Most contractors need serious supervision in order to
deliver quality work. Contractors who have long-term
contracts under term maintenance are likely to default if
they are not strictly monitored.
 The worst defaulters under term maintenance are those of
gravel roads. Whereas they may be required to carry out
interventions at particular timely intervals, this may not
happen yet they continue to claim for their payments even
when the interventions are not in tandem with what they
actually did.
Road Monitoring

20.  There is lack of cooperation among the actors for instance
whereas UNRA had given us a go ahead to monitor the
roads most contractors out rightly refused to talk to us. In
one instance, a consulting firm had invited us (Monitors) to
be part of one of the regular monthly site meetings.
 We were however later told to leave when the meeting
was about to commence because “matters to be discussed
are very confidential”. Contract files were not organized.
We were given starks of files by UNRA to choose our
information which was both time consuming and difficult
to sieve what we wanted.
Road Monitoring – Our Experience

21.  Open contracting has come with a lot of expectation and
the world , more so developing countries are waiting in
suspense as to whether it will help deliver projects that are
worthwhile.
 There is need for strong linkage of Open contracting and
poverty reduction
 CSOs have a leading role to play but they need capacity
enhancement
 OPAQUE CONTRACTING + LACK OF INFORMATION x
CORRUPTION - CITIZEN PARTICIPATION÷POOR SERVICE
DELIVERY = POVERTY
Conclusion