VALERIA MERINO DIRANI

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VALERIA MERINO DIRANI

• INTEGRITY PACTS IN ECUADOR
• Effective measures against corruption in Public
  Procurement

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WHEN DOES CORRUPTION APPEAR?

• ROBERT KLITGAARD FORMULA
• MD-T C
• C CORRUPTION
• M MONOPOLY OR CONCENTRATION OF POWER
• D DISCRECIONALITY
• T TRANSPARENCY

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INTEGRITY PACT

• Is a tool to identify a transaction within a
  market and get the actors in that transaction to
  commit to integrity, in a
  coordinated manner, and to monitor in a
  pro-active way the transparency of the process

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INTEGRITY PACTS

• Conditions for implementation
• High levels of systemic corruption
• Need of structural reform
• Severe party politics influence over public
  contracting system and,
• Opportunity to isolate a specific procurement
  processes and promote transparency within it
  (strategic nature or amount).

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WHAT IS THE LONG TERM OBJETIVE OF THE INTEGRITY
PACTS?

• TO PROMOTE THE INSTITUTIONALIZATION OF SPECIFIC
  PRINCIPLES THAT ASSURE TRANSPARENCY

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This includes

• STRUCTURAL REFORM TO ERRADICATE THE CONDITIONS
  THAT PERMIT AND PROMOTE CORRUPT ACTIVITIES IN
  PUBLIC CONTRACTING
• ENABLING AN ADEQUATE ENVIRONMENT TOWARDS THE
  PROMOTION OF PROFOUND REFORMS IN THE PUBLIC
  CONTRACTING SYSTEM

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SPECIFIC OBJECTIVES

• Improve transparency and accountability in a
  particular procurement process
• Improve citizen's perception of transparency
  regarding the public sector and,
• Initiate a public discussion process about the
  public contracting regulations.

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Integrity pacts Efficiency

• The nature of the IPs allows for the
  promotion of transparency and anti-corruption at
  a very efficient cost-benefit ratio

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Implementation Tools

• Cooperative Agreement
• Code of Conduct
• Confidentiality Agreement
• Integrity Pact

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Main elements of the IPs

• Access to information
• Active monitoring
• Possibility to improve the bidding documents
• Inclusion of IP tools in the bidding documents
• Confidentiality and handling of privileged
  information

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Main elements of the IPs

• Reduction of conflict of interest
• Justification of technical decisions
• Justification of legal interpretations and
  decisions
• Clear record keeping

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Limitations

• There is a difficult tension between the interest
  in depicting results and the necessity of
  dedicating the sufficient time towards adequately
  structuring the bidding process and discussing
  with experts or interested parties
• The tendency to consider that all problems should
  be resolved through legal means and,

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Limitations

• The inherent difficulties of working on ethical
  compromises and voluntary cultural changes, as
  those within the Integrity Pacts.

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Special attention should be placed on the
following issues in the procurement process

• Clearly define which requirements are mandatory
  and if not complied with, result in automatic
  disqualification, avoiding discretion in the
  interpretation

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Special attention should be placed on the
following issues

• Guarantee an adequate evaluation and separation
  of the technical and economic aspects of the
  proposals in such a way that, once the technical
  suitability of the proposals is ensured, those
  participants satisfying the minimum requirements
  would proceed to the financial bidding
  competition - preferably in a public hearing

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Special attention should be placed on the
following issues

• Avoid the manipulation of information by public
  officials
• Eliminate the requirement of documents, which do
  not add valuable or pertinent information for the
  proposal evaluation
• Avoid subjective criteria in the evaluation (for
  example the qualification of the proposed
  methodology) which may bias the results

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Special attention should be placed on the
following issues

• Eliminate requirements or criteria that can be
  completed by only one proponent
• Eliminate, as much as possible, the existence of
  confidential information and control its possible
  leakage
• Advance publication or public discussion of the
  first draft of the contract in order to avoid
  later changes in the contract terms which would
  favour one proponent and,
• Avoid ex-parte communications.

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Integrity Pacts must certainly focus on the
institutionalisation of certain elements

• Efficiency and effectiveness
• Competitiveness
• Transparency
• Publicity and,
• Civic Participation.

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• Valeria Merino Dirani
• Phone [phone]
• E-mail vmerinodirani_at_hushmail.com