Bush buddies set Iraq bad example

By secretly awarding indefinite delivery and indefinite quantity contracts to a small number of firms - some, like Halliburton, with strong personal links to The White House - the US offered a poor role model to a country with a heritage of corruption in state procurement, analysts argued in TI's Global Corruption Report 2005.

The TI Standards call on public contracting authorities to ensure that contracts are subject to open, competitive bidding. TI has said tough sanctions are needed against companies caught bribing, including forfeiture of the contract and blacklisting from future bidding.

...and this is the way you should do it, George

• Implement a code of conduct that commits the contracting authority to a strict anti-corruption policy, and allow a company to tender only if it has implemented a similar code of conduct
• Maintain a blacklist of companies involved in corrupt activities
• Ensure that public contracts above a low threshold are subject to open competitive bidding
• Provide all bidders, and preferably also the general public, with easy access to information about all phases of the contracting process
• Ensure that contract ‘change’ orders that alter the price or description of work beyond a cumulative threshold are monitored at a high level, preferably by the decision-making body that awarded the contract
• Ensure that internal and external control and auditing bodies are independent and functioning effectively, and that their reports are accessible to the public. Any unreasonable delays in project execution should trigger additional control activities
• Separate key functions to ensure that responsibility for demand assessment, preparation, selection, contracting, supervision and control of a project is assigned to separate bodies
• Promote the participation of civil society organisations as independent monitors of both the tender and execution of projects.