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Reforming Public Procurement -- Syquia
BIS Pillars and Indicators APPI Major Criteria Explanation
Ind. 11 – The public has
broad access to information
Ind. 12 – The country has
ethics and anti-corruption
measures in place
Evaluation is an instrument for learning. The information it generates, if used effectively, can greatly
enhance the operation of an organization. xxi Evaluation is also a primary mechanism for ensuring
accountability, providing a basis for correcting operational problems and informing sound
management decision making. xxii In this light, the purpose of the APPI is to identify and describe the
strengths and weaknesses of the agency with respect to its personnel’s understanding of and
compliance with the current public procurement legal framework. It is also intended to identify
general and specific procurement practices that may affect the manner in which the basic principles of
a sound procurement system are observed, namely transparency, competition, accountability,
efficiency, equity, economy and effectiveness.
Through the APPI, the procurement environment of an agency is presented by outlining gaps in
critical areas of procurement processes and practices, including organizational matters. As such, it
may be said that, as with the BIS, the ultimate purpose of the APPI is formative. General and specific
recommendations may be made to the head of the subject agency to assist it in improving its
evaluation ratings vis-à-vis the national procurement agenda and the BIS evaluation. These agency
ratings would have to be given within the parameters of an assessment of the general level of
assistance or intervention required for the subject agency.
The APPI must include a rating sheet to compute the scores given by the subject agency for each
Major Criterion, and also to determine its overall score, to provide an indicator of the level of
assistance or intervention required to remedy identified problems. For example, if an agency gets a
very low rating of 20% in the assessment, this may be an indication that the agency needs substantial
assistance, to ensure that its internal regulations are consistent with the national procurement law. It
will likely also need in-depth capacity building and monitoring activities, to ensure that once its
internal policies are sufficiently established it would be able to translate these into actual practice that
leads to improved outcomes. Conversely, a high rating of 90% may indicate that the subject agency
merely requires monitoring activities to ensure that positive performance is sustained.
The rating system shown below can also be used to grade an agency’s performance against each major
criterion. Using such a rating system, the assessor may then make recommendations on priority
interventions, grouped into short, medium and longer-term actions.
Table 2: Procurement Reform Rating System
0 – 19% of
Major Criteria
20 – 69% of
Major Criteria
70 – 89% of
Major Criteria
90 – 100% of
Major Criteria
NA PA SA FA
Where:
NA = Not Achieved (Less than 20% rating on the Indicators)
PA = Partially Achieved (At least 20% but less than 70% rating on the Indicators)
SA = Substantially achieved (At least 70% but less than 90% rating on the Indicators)
FA = Fully Achieved (90% to 100% rating on the Indicators)
Fiscal Reform and Economic Governance Project 23