Burkina Faso

Quick facts

	Country: Burkina Faso
	Year of assessment: 2019
	Procurement value: Approx. €639,952,151
	Principal organisation: DGCMEF (National Directorate for the Control of Public Procurement and Financial)
	Main partners: World Bank (WB), the African Development Bank (AfDB) and the Swiss Cooperation Office (SDC)

Background

The assessment took place in the context of public procurement reforms carried out in 2016-2017 and focused on the implementation of the new West African Economic and Monetary Union harmonized public finance framework.
The objective of the assessment was to identify the main strengths and weaknesses of the national public procurement system and public service delegations and to formulate recommendations that can lead to further reform measures

Process

Conducted between 2018 and 2019, the assessment was coordinated by the Minister of Economy, Finance and Development (MINEFID). The evaluation steering committee, which included representatives from government, the private sector and civil society, as well as representatives from the WB, AfDB and SDC, oversaw and validated the work.
A wide range of public entities was represented in the evaluation. This included a variety of actors in the public procurement system at all levels, including central, regional and local institutions, as well as state-owned enterprises. All stages of the procurement process and a substantial volume of contracts were included.
In addition, to foster broad support for the assessment and to ensure the consideration of multiple points-of-view, there has been special emphasis on stakeholder engagement outside the public sector. For the private sector, FASO BAARA Agency, the House of the Enterprise Burkina Faso and the Chamber of Commerce were involved in the assessment steering committee. The National Anti-Corruption Network (RENLAC) as well as journalists participated as representative from the civil society.
A sample of 96 contracts was selected to assess the practices of the various contracting authorities. This sample represents 8.27% of the total amount of contracts in financial volume and 3.43% of the total number of contracts for the year 2017.
The COVID-19 pandemic presented a major disruption to the assessment process.

Key results and impacts

Some of the main recommendations are the following:

Adopt a sustainable public procurement strategy allowing sustainability criteria to be considered to integrate the economic, social, and environmental dimension of public procurement.
Set up a mandatory e-Procurement system, integrated with the public financial management system, that allows the electronic management of the whole procurement cycle.
Strengthen contract management by introducing: (i) monitoring of the management of contract execution at the fiduciary and technical level by an external control body; (ii) the use of independent technical audits for complex contracts; (iii) reconciliation between objectives in contract completion reports in a standard format; (iv) the obligation to publish endorsements; (v) a site for the publication of statistics on the award and execution of contracts; and (vi) an exhaustive archiving mechanism for the award and execution of contracts.
Set up a legal framework for systematic in-depth investigations in the event of reports of cases of fraud or corruption of public officials, as well as systematic referral to justice in the event of confirmation of fraud.

The successful implementation of the recommendations should bring the national public procurement system in line with internationally recognised standards and good practices and thus improve the overall performance of the national public procurement system. Ultimately, this improvement should lead to better absorption of investment credits in compliance with the general principles of public procurement, with a view to achieving development objectives.

" It is important to assess the Burkina Faso public procurement system through the revised MAPS to compare our procurement system to the international procurement standards. Findings and recommendations will help us to improve our national public procurement system.”

Senior government official during the validation of the concept note

Lessons learned

The evaluation of the performance of actors in the public procurement system encountered difficulties, the most significant of which concerned the data collection phase.

In view of the difficulties encountered during the collection of the MAPS evaluation, the contracting authorities have been asked to keep public procurement documents properly and to archive them in accordance with the formally established procedures for archiving public procurement documents.

Impartiality and potential conflicts of interest are important to consider when putting in place the assessment team. Some of the institutions involved in the assessment were also under assessment, which created resistance to some conclusions. To counter this, it was necessary to bring on board an external independent expert.