Contracts, Data and Investigations - Edition 78
This month: A menu of investigations from Kenya, to Spain, Mexico and the US. Plus some spicy data insights from Colombia, Sri Lanka and Uganda and a new resource tracking global company violations on
Welcome back to our newsletter, covering stories about the use and abuse of public contracts and providing tips and insights on how to investigate public procurement. Are you investigating a public contract right now? Get in touch – we’d love to help.
[What we’re keeping an eye on]
We have a full menu of insightful investigations from across the world for you this month.
As a starter, some contract blunders that could have been avoided by getting the ingredients right from the beginning: A $34.8 million contract in Canada for new sleeping bags that weren’t warm enough for winter, and a blaze at a German fire station built without a fire alarm.
Kenya: The Nation’s Dominic Omondi reports that a Nairobi hotel partially owned by the president has allegedly won more contracts than any other hotel in the capital. OCCRP’s Purity Mukami reviews the Anglo-Leasing scandal that rocked the country 20 years ago and follows the money in an ever-evolving global “shell game” of new schemes to hide the profits (the latest model: offshore trusts). These were some of the stories discussed at a recent training I led with a number of excellent investigative journalists from Kenya on digging into contracts. Check out the data from the country’s newly updated public procurement information portal here.
The New York Times investigates the US government’s exposure to Elon Musk’s companies, including Tesla and SpaceX, which provide critical infrastructure such as satellites. Only last year, his companies were promised $3 billion across nearly 100 different contracts with 17 federal agencies. At the same time, there have been more than 20 investigations or reviews of his companies, including over environmental damage caused by his rockets.
In Spain, El Diario’s Daniel Cela explores how the practice of contract splitting – breaking up large contracts into smaller ones to avoid competition – apparently allowed Andalucia to hand out EUR 458 million through direct awards, according to the region’s auditors. Listen to the podcast explaining the issue in more detail. And check out this handy infographic by Spanish NGO Civio from a couple of years ago. Alas, it seems not much has changed.
Contract splitting and simulating competition were also frequent ingredients in the Mexican state of Tabasco, finds Connectas’ Alejandro Castro who revealed the incoming governor’s tactics to favor businesses from his home state in a previous role heading up the national tourism development fund. Explore more analysis, visualizations and data in the story.
[Data insights]
A new study from Uganda shows public officials can make procurement more competitive by improving transparency and building trust among domestic companies. The authors, Chicago Booth’s Emanuele Colonnelli, Francesco Loiacono of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, Northwestern’s Edoardo Teso and our own Edwin Muhumuza, partnered with Uganda’s Public Procurement and Disposal of Public Assets Authority (PPDA) to research the motivations and behavior of companies with randomized control trials.
La Silla Vacia’s Jerson Ortiz and Jineth Prieto investigated conflicts of interests among Colombia’s congress members and found that only 71 of 292 followed the law. Analysis of public contracts showed most members had campaign contributors who won contracts. And one in four congresspeople have at least one family member who signed a contract since they took office in 2022. The project was part of the Joining the Dots project by the Argentinian NGO Directorio Legislativo.
Infrastructure Watch, a platform developed by Sri Lanka’s Verité Research, assesses 50 large-scale projects in 2024 with a combined value of 1 trillion Sri Lankan rupees ($3.4 billion). Their data shows the government disclosed only 40% of the required information, and data on public procurement was disclosed at only 20%. Read the case for good governance in infrastructure in this article by Verité Research’s Bulani Weerawardane and Malinda Meegoda for The Diplomat.
Leaking ceilings, freezing classrooms and discolored drinking water — that’s what many students in Idaho deal with, especially in rural districts, according to some excellent local reporting by ProPublica’s Asia Fields and Idaho Statesman’s Becca Savransky. Their series paints a bleak picture of what school buildings look like in the US state with the lowest spending on school infrastructure. It makes Cory Finley’s 2019 movie Bad Education look almost like a documentary.
[Data tools & resources]
Ahead of the US election, Open Secrets launched its beautiful new website, which provides access to key data to follow the money in politics. How about connecting that nice lobbying, political advertising and revolving door data with some of the award data on USAspending.gov for dessert?
Good Jobs First has published its global edition of the Violation Tracker. The database has information on the penalties imposed on companies by competition authorities in 45 countries, including in relation to collusion on bids for government contracts. Check for public tenders and public procurement-related violations under competition-related offenses or bribery. Searching is free, downloading results incurs a fee.
This newsletter has been put together by the Open Contracting Partnership. Thanks for reading. Do give us a like if you’ve enjoyed the read. Did a friend forward you this email?