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Funding agencies need to be meticulous on procurement practices

Jul 22, 2017 Letters

Dear Editor,
There is much talk about past and present government administrations abusing the use of high-salaried contract ‘knowledge workers’. The fact of the matter is that these ‘knowledge workers’ are very often being paid by donor or lending agencies. The question therefore is: Are regional and international funding agencies unwittingly enabling hosting agencies to get away with unacceptable procurement practices? Is the procurement process really transparent?
Yes, says the administrators and eagerly point to the fact that the position was advertised. But, is that all that is required for the process to be considered transparent? I don’t think so.
Here are some of the issues that should be considered:
– Are all qualified persons given an equal opportunity to apply, a level playing field?
– Were all the applications objectively evaluated?
– Were all the persons who formed part of the interviewing panel, qualified to conduct the interview?
– Did the subject area fall within their ‘circle of competence’?
– Did the interviewers conduct the interview with due diligence?
– Was the interviewing process objective and transparent?
– Are the applicants made aware of the criteria that would be used?
– Were records of the questions asked and responses duly noted, recorded and kept?
Many funding agencies assume the following:
– Senior Public Servants in the Guyana Public Service and other Senior Executives in government owned corporations and other institutions always discharge their responsibilities with due diligence;
– All Senior Public Servants and other high level functionaries always act with integrity;
– Because of their titles/positions, they are qualified (at least at the level of Master’s Degree in the relevant area) and competent to discharge their responsibilities (over 90 percent of the Permanent Secretaries do not have a Master’s Degree in the relevant area);
– They have been trained in the designing and conducting of high level interviews (as far as my research indicates, very few if any have been trained in this area, yet this is a key part of their responsibilities).
But, are those assumptions valid? I don’t think so. You may recall Guyana’s ranking on the Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) report for 2016 where Guyana got a score of 34 up from 29 in 2015.
So, what are some of the conditions that contribute to collusion and distortions in the selection process? Here are some of the ‘enabling conditions.’ Many funding agencies:
– do not have a representative attending and over viewing the interviewing process ;
– do not require the implementing agencies to submit the academic qualifications of the members of the interviewing panel;
– do not require the interviewing panel to submit a copy of the pre-designed interview with an array of the questions to be asked;
– do not require the implementing agencies to submit copies of the questions to be asked at the interview.
Some proposed solutions:
In accordance with Best Practice in the area of Human Resource Management, and in the interest of transparency, funding agencies may want to consider:
– Sending a representative to provide oversight of the interviewing process;
– Requesting the hosting institution and or the implementing agencies to submit the academic qualifications of the parties conducting interviews of high-level contract workers;
– Asking applicants for the contract positions to submit copies of their applications to both the funding agency and the implementing agency;
– Applicants should be informed prior to the interview what criteria would be used to assess their suitability for the positions and what weight would be assigned to each criterion.
So, what are some of the First Order and Third Order consequences of poor selection of a candidate? Failed projects, goals and objectives not achieved, targeted beneficiaries not benefiting from the project, persistent poverty and underdevelopment.
Concerned citizen

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