Public procurement and corruption in Bangladesh confronting the challenges and opportunities

Abstract

In new democracies like Bangladesh code of conduct, the ethics and issues of conflict of interest have not been
accorded a high priority for legislative and administrative reforms. To discuss the role of public administration in
Bangladesh and recommends measures to be adopted to prevent corruption in public procurement. Information on
global and regional in connection to procurement and corruption were retrieved from documents available mainly
on electronic databases, literature survey, on websites of specialized agencies and analysis of the existing situation
in Bangladesh held. In Bangladesh contract awards provide opportunities for procurement. There are reports of
wide- ranging corruption, political control and pressure from trade unions in the procurement process. Public trust
in the process is generally absent. The World Banks evaluation of Bangladesh concluded that the implementation of
procurement process is far from satisfactory, due to the following problems, poor advertisement, short bidding
periods, poor specifications, nondisclosure of selection criteria, contract awards by lottery, one-sided contract
documents, negotiations with all bidders and rebidding without adequate grounds, occurrence of corruption
involving donor agency are not uncommon at nationally or globally and or other levels. The interesting finding is
that procurement happens to be one of the lucrative areas, where corruption of above nature, therefore, the quality
of public administration must be improved and accountable, which is an integral part of good governance.