Philippines: Country Procurement Assessment Report 2012

Institutional Document | December 2013
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This document reports on the progress of reforms of the Philippine public procurement system for 2012. It provides the government, its development partners and other stakeholders with information regarding the health of the current procurement system allowing further dialogue for needed reforms.

Price
  • US$28.00 (paperback)

Proper public procurement practices directly reflect good governance. Transparent and effective procurement practices minimize expenditure and create opportunity. Procurement is an enormous component in the process by which governments build infrastructure, such as schools and hospitals. It involves the management of significant amounts of money and is therefore often the cause for allegations of corruption and government inefficiency.

The difference between getting public procurement right and doing it wrong has the potential to be either highly rewarding, or highly damaging. In some nations, reforms implemented to improve the efficiency of public procurement have resulted in savings of 1% of a country's gross domestic product. One can see why public procurement is so significant to the development of a country and its people.

This document reports on the progress of reforms of the Philippine public procurement system for 2012. It provides the government, its development partners and other stakeholders with information regarding the health of the current procurement system allowing further dialogue for needed reforms.

Findings

Five major issues pertaining to differences and inconsistencies between the Philippines' Government Procurement Reform Act and the multilateral development banks' rules on national procurement that warrant further review are as follows:

  • The restrictions on foreign ownership of Filipino firms and the nationality requirements for joint venture arrangements that limit the entry of foreign bidders;
  • The use of the Approved Budget for the Contract as the ceiling for bid prices and the award of contracts;
  • The institution of an independent and autonomous complaint appeals body to resolve protests;
  • The absence of procedures for international competitive bidding in the Government Procurement Reform Act, as it is assumed that this is applicable only to foreign-funded procurements; and
  • The absence of pre-qualification procedures.

An action plan integrating all the existing and proposed initiatives and recommendations to address the areas for improvement in the public procurement system includes the following:

  • implementation of the professionalization program;
  • implementation of the agency procurement compliance and performance indicator and development of mechanisms to enforce compliance;
  • review and possible revision of the implementing rules and regulations to provide procedures for international competitive bidding;
  • establishment of an independent complaints or protest review body and development of its governing rules and procedures; and
  • development and implementation of a framework to sustain and ensure civil society organization participation in procurement monitoring.

Contents

  • Background
  • Findings, Assessments, and Recommendations
  • Country Risk Assessment
  • Foreign-Assisted Projects
  • Action Plan

Additional Details

Type
Series
Subjects
  • ADB administration and governance
  • Governance and public sector management
Countries
  • Philippines
ISBN
  • 978-92-9254-324-2 (print)
  • 978-92-9254-325-9 (web)

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