Open systems key to stemming public private partnership graft

Uganda continues to be bedeviled by a number of corruption scandals.

A Chile University professor has urged the government to put in place transparent systems and ensure competitive bidding to curb corruption in Public-Private Partnership tenders for infrastructure development.

Speaking at the first Africa Public-Private partnership (PPP) conference in Uganda yesterday, Prof. Ronald Fischer, said the government should publish all information about ongoing PPPs so that the public can be critical to uncover abuses.

“Transparent systems and competitive bidding are the most important conditions to reduce corruption under the PPP arrangement. All competitors should be exposed to the same conditions,” he said in Kampala yesterday.

The Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) are long-term contractual arrangements between the public and private sector in which the private sector has responsibility for significant aspects of project development.

Under the arrangement, assets are owned by the public sector but controlled temporarily by the private party.

Prof. Fischer’s warning comes at a time when Uganda is in the spotlight over a massive wave of corruption scandals in government ministries and agencies.

A Transparency International Corruption Perception Index released on Wednesday also ranked Uganda the 46th most corrupt country in the world out of 176 countries surveyed.

Uganda most corrupt in EA
In August, the EA Bribery Index conducted by Transparency International, Kenya ranked Uganda with the highest level of bribery at 40.7 per cent, followed by Tanzania 39.1 per cent, Kenya 29.5 per cent and Rwanda 2.5 per cent.

Finance minister, Maria Kiwanuka said PPPs are more important than ever before now that Africa’s traditional source of bilateral and multilateral finance – European countries – are likely to be subjected to inevitable pressures in the wake of the Eurozone crisis.

“Public investment alone is not enough because the demand for infrastructure is growing faster on the continent and in the next decade it will impossible to for any government to provide services individually,” Ms Kiwanuka said.

fkulabako@ug.nationmedia.com