In Kenya, Open Contracting Improves Efficiency & Curbs Corruption

With citizens’ lives on the line and government spending at record highs, ensuring accountability to citizens is imperative to maintaining trust and effectively managing KEMSA’s procurement in response to COVID-19. Open procurement data can help in improving the efficiency of emergency procurement and support civil society groups to detect corruption and monitor the effectiveness of service delivery.

“This level of transparency and through the use of technology will go a very long way in ensuring that we have the confidence of our people that those placed in institutions are able to manage the resources of the Kenyan taxpayer plus our development partners in an open and transparent manner” – President Uhuru Kenyatta

Much can be learned from Makueni County in Kenya, a county that publishes and uses open, accessible, and timely information on government contracting to engage citizens and businesses. The Makueni Open Contracting Portal is an interactive site built by Development Gateway (DG) that provides detailed information on each step of the tender, award, and contract implementation process at the county level. These steps are now recorded within the interactive Makueni Open Contracting Portal – making information available for citizens at each step of the process. The county plans to go a step further to publish all implementation data such as community monitoring reports, also known as PMC reports and supplier payment vouchers.

The goal of the portal is to improve the efficiency of public procurement management and support the delivery of higher-quality goods, works, and services for residents of Makueni County through enhanced citizen feedback.

What We Learned from Makueni County

Lesson 1: Public Data Improves Efficiency

The primary role of the Ministry of Health and KEMSA in Kenya during an emergency situation is to provide citizens timely, affordable, and efficient supplies and services. Digitizing and publishing procurement data will provide the Ministry insights on whether funding and services are reaching intended beneficiaries. 

Publishing procurement data will also encourage better monitoring from relevant state and non-state actors. The Ministry of Health and KEMSA will have the opportunity to aggregate non-state actors’ feedback and state actor insights. This feedback will enable them to make data-driven decisions that will improve service delivery to citizens, promote efficient allocation of resources and ultimately saving costs.

DG has developed interactive M&E dashboards to support analysis currently used by Makueni County. The series of charts and visualizations provide helpful data insights – such as top suppliers that received contracts and the percentage of awards that go toward the Access to Government Procurement Opportunities (AGPO), which requires tenders to be awarded to women, youth, and people with disabilities.

Since the start of the use of the Makueni open contracting portal in 2019, improved resource utilization and efficiency in procurement has been identified by the County leadership. Governor Kivutha Kibwana cited that the County has saved Kes. 30,000,000 from the Roads department as a result of using the portal.

Lesson 2: Building Trust is Essential to Combating Corruption

The complexity of emergency responses such as COVID-19 requires cooperation between the private sector, national, and county government to ensure timely delivery of supplies. KEMSA publishing data will promote feedback and engagement of business and citizens further building trust and collaboration. Publishing procurement data also equips civil society and citizens with the information needed to help combat corruption. For example, reporting counterfeits, frauds, and scams – which has been a key corruption issue identified globally in COVID-19 response procurement, particularly PPEs.

DG has implemented its corruption risk dashboard in Makueni, which uses high powered analytics and global research to identify risk profiles for potential corruption in procurement. KEMSA can adopt the corruption risk dashboard as a red-flagging tool to assist in identifying procurement activities that merit in-depth auditing of corruption risk – including fraud, collusion, and process rigging – over time. These analytics will allow the organization to address cases of corruption before taxpayer money is lost.

Lastly, publishing Beneficial ownership data can enable governments to quickly perform minimal standards of due diligence on companies they are buying goods and services from. As well as reducing the immediate risk of corruption, beneficial ownership data provides a valuable trail for future audit.

This year, the World Health Organization (WHO) has designated the theme for World No Tobacco Day (WNTD) as ‘protecting children from industry interference’. The topic is more timely than ever, particularly in the African context that Development Gateway: An IREX Venture (DG) operates in through the Data on Youth and Tobacco in Africa (DaYTA) program and the Tobacco Control Data Initiative (TCDI). 

For one, African countries are home to an extremely youthful populace. In Nigeria, over 50 percent of the population is under the age of 18, while in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), over 60 percent of the population is under the age of 24.

Over the years, the tobacco industry in Africa has successfully thwarted legal and institutional measures to combat its interference through a creative suite of tactics. The historical deception surrounding the tobacco industry’s representation of smoking’s adverse public health impacts has diminished its credibility amongst policymakers and civil society. As a result, the industry players have reverted to the use of front groups (i.e., manufacturers, media/PR firms, farmers associations, etc.), exploitation of public opinion, aggressive lobbying, and conflicts of interest to gain influence and repair its social image in the public eye.

Through the DaYTA program, DG is gathering primary data on tobacco use rates and trends among 10-17-year-olds in Kenya, Nigeria, and the DRC. This research will include new and emerging nicotine and tobacco products, such as electronic nicotine and non-nicotine delivery systems and heated tobacco products. Additional data gaps the DaYTA program seeks to fill include the socio-behavioral influences motivating minors to initiate tobacco use, as well as the nature of youth interactions with tobacco industry marketing. 

In the DRC context, having data on prevalence is especially crucial. Presently, the only youth prevalence data available comes from the Global Youth Tobacco Survey (GYTS), conducted in 2008. In addition, this dataset is limited to in-school youth in urban areas, excluding two major demographics: out-of-school and rural youth.

Through the TCDI program’s ongoing comprehensive work filling tobacco data gaps in six countries, DG has enabled tobacco control stakeholders to combat tobacco industry interference using legislative and regulatory mechanisms. For example, during a recent meeting held in the DRC, tobacco control stakeholders from the WHO, civil society organizations, and various departments of the Ministry of Health (MoH) reiterated the need to utilize results from TCDI’s primary research on illicit trade, to support efforts to ratify the Protocol for the Elimination of Illicit Tobacco Trade in the DRC parliament. Notably, in 2023, then Prime Minister, Sama Lukonde, issued a ministerial decree (040) banning smoking in public places.

The tobacco industry has devised and deployed a number of creative strategies to target young people–advertising near schools and playgrounds, giving away products for free, and selling appealing flavors in new and emerging tobacco products. During the DaYTA program’s rapid assessment in the DRC, stakeholders explained that one of the ways the tobacco industry captures children’s attention is by leveraging the use of toys and sweets. Specifically, they indirectly advertise near schools by selling candy mimicking the appearance of a cigarette, including the names and packaging of major cigarette brands. This subliminal messaging may lead children to become curious about real tobacco products, encouraging consumption later in life.

Since the TCDI program began in 2019, the number of African countries participating in the Global Tobacco Industry Interference Survey has steadily increased–from a mere 5 countries in 2019 to 20 in 2023. This survey details how governments are responding to tobacco industry interference and how closely governments are adhering to the requirements stipulated by the WHO’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC).

The research and knowledge base stemming from the TCDI program has highlighted a host of recommendations to tobacco control stakeholders on how to address the industry interference, including but not limited to:

• Require transparency from the tobacco industry. Ensure the public has access to tobacco industry information, such as disclosures. This facilitates openness and accountability.
• Establish a provision of standards or code of conduct to regulate interactions between public officials and the tobacco industry. For instance, an official or state employee should not accept gifts or services, in cash or in-kind, from the tobacco industry. Moreover, governments should not accept, support, or endorse any voluntary code of conduct put forth by the tobacco industry in place of legally binding tobacco control measures.
• Reject any and all partnerships with the tobacco industry, especially when it involves the industry attempting to position itself as a socially responsible stakeholder through engagement in corporate social responsibility activities.
• Enforce Monitoring & Enforcement mechanisms such as penal sanctions and whistleblower policies.
• Avoid granting preferential business treatment to the tobacco industry.

As youth represent one of the most vulnerable populations being targeted by aggressive marketing of retail nicotine and tobacco products, it is imperative that interventions to combat tobacco industry interference can be pursued and implemented effectively. The six TCDI focus-country dashboards remain an excellent resource for stakeholders to expose lies perpetuated by the tobacco industry. For example, in many African countries, the stakeholders claim that tobacco control laws are unconstitutional or infringe on international trade and investment agreements. This is categorically false, as the WHO FCTC represents a legal basis for the policies being challenged, as there exists an international consensus on the adverse effects of tobacco use.

On this year’s World No Tobacco Day, DG is more cognizant than ever of the importance and impact of our tobacco control portfolio. Our longstanding efforts to equip policymakers, civil society, and the general public with access to timely and relevant data aids in facilitating sound decision-making, bolstering public trust, and creating opportunities for youth participation. Access to timely, accurate, and context-specific data on adolescent tobacco use is essential for cementing a robust tobacco control framework, one that can proactively combat tobacco industry interference, particularly in policymaking processes.