Contracts, Data and Investigations - Edition 80
This time: DOGE demolition and other blows to U.S. contracts, military procurement, corruption monitoring in Indonesia and analyzing country data on climate spending, sanctions and healthcare
Welcome back to our newsletter, it’s a long one, 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.
We’ve had our fair share of examples of inefficiency, fraud and corruption in public procurement in the nearly five years since we kicked off this newsletter. But one thing’s for sure: taking the chainsaw to public contracts will not make governments more efficient. The key to detecting corruption and better procurement? Publishing transparent and open data sets, providing a clear set of rules and regulations, and enabling participatory processes that empower citizens and allow journalists to hold governments to account.
[What we’re keeping an eye on]
Let’s be clear, services delivered through public procurement are critical to people's lives and livelihoods. In contrast, the new U.S. administration’s theory of government efficiency - if there is a coherent one - seems to proceed from the assumption that these services are disposable.
Here are some of the top U.S. stories as they relate to government contracts.
Call off the Doge: The newly established Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) claims to have saved billions by terminating public contracts (listed on its “wall of receipts” here), but an excellent analysis by the New York Times finds that a string of those contracts had already been completed years earlier. The Times also revealed that DOGE has barely touched the biggest sources of contract spending in the federal budget and it made other errors in its savings claims. Poynter’s Calleb McCullough fact checks claims that this information was previously secret (it was not) and that the contracts canceled were fraudulent (there’s no evidence they were).
The real impact: The canceled deals included 875 contracts that provided healthcare and benefits for veterans, such as medical and burial services, cancer programs and essential recruitment for doctors, report The Washington Post’s Emily Davies and Hannah Natanson. Some cuts have since been reversed after backlash, but the list of terminated contracts has still not been made public.
The elephant in the room: The Washington Post finds that Elon Musk and his businesses have received at least $38 billion in government contracts, loans, subsidies and tax credits, often at critical moments, highlighting an evident conflict of interest.
Unsurprisingly, there’s a lot of talk about Teslas, from a makeshift car dealership on the White House lawn to planned procurement spending for “Armored Teslas (Production Units) Armored Electric Vehicles” to the value of $400 million. NPR’s Bobby Allyn has the full run-down on a story first reported by Drop Site News’ Ryan Grim and Jack Poulson.
How are shifts in U.S. policy affecting the rest of the world’s contracting practices?
Amid the Trump administration’s threats of tariffs and annexation, some Canadian politicians and companies are pushing for more domestic sourcing. Canada’s Investigative Journalism Foundation (IJF) reveals that a quarter of the top 100 suppliers to Canada’s federal government are headquartered in the United States, including Elon Musk’s companies.
As the US retreats from partnerships in Africa, China will be ready to fill the project gap and further build its soft power. Chinese companies signed contracts in the region worth more than $700 billion between 2013 and 2023, according to Beijing’s commerce minister, including for railways, ports and bridges.
Finally, the landmark 1977 Foreign Corrupt Practices Act that prohibits U.S. companies from bribing foreign officials has essentially been halted. Anti-corruption campaigners warn the move will result in a race to the bottom and open up US firms to extortion.
In other news, military procurement and defence contracting remains a sector to watch.
IJF's Kate Schneider finds that Canada's defence suppliers were the biggest winners of federal contracts in 2024, with deals totalling C$13.6 billion (US$9.5 billion), or 64.5% of the value of all contracts awarded by the federal government.
A BIRN investigation led by Bianca Albu puts a spotlight on some of the questionable companies winning big contracts in Romania since the outbreak of the war in Ukraine.
In Lithuania, a LRT investigation led by Mindaugas Aušra finds that a military supplier bribed officials to turn a blind eye to defective construction work.
With investments in the sector set to soar and greater secrecy due to concerns over confidentiality, anyone scrutinizing defence contracts should check our Mythbusting Guide for advice on what information really should be considered sensitive.
Infrastructure and IT procurement are other hot sectors.
Serbia continues to experience massive anti-corruption protests linked to public contracts. The student-led campaign was sparked by a deadly roof collapse at a train station in November. Critics are blaming the incident on corruption and a lack of oversight in public infrastructure projects.
Philippines: A Global Witness investigation on a new international airport in the Philippines finds that sea levels are set to rise at three times the rate mentioned in contract planning documents, putting the investments at risk within 30 years, especially as measures in its environmental mitigation plan remain unfulfilled. Stricter environmental legislation seems to have been avoided by classifying the airport as a “land development” project.
Brazil: Intercept Brasil’s Laís Martins investigates the single-bid purchase of Clearview, a technology that collects photos without authorization for facial recognition.
[Data insights]
🚩Sri Lanka: Based on our red flags guidance, the think tank Verité Research assessed disclosure levels of procurement information on Sri Lanka’s e-government procurement platform. The analysis identified critical compliance gaps and improvements to better identify and pre-empt corruption risks. Check out the research.
📍United States: Grist’s Clayton Aldern has published a searchable tool to track U.S. climate and infrastructure projects promised under the Biden administration – and those that may now be at risk. The tool combines information across multiple datasets to reveal where more than $300 billion of the funds have been awarded, including data on location, funding amount, project description, implementing agency and links to data on funds disbursed and spent. Access the tool and check out the open-source documentation on Github.
🔍 Mexico’s Ojo a las Sanciones (Eye on Sanctions) provides a searchable database of businesses that have been sanctioned, lack tax records, or have been otherwise excluded from public procurement. It was developed by the civil society organizations +integridad and Abrimos.info.
📊UK’s Open Opportunities has analyzed over six million healthcare tenders across 135 countries to reveal insights about healthcare procurement trends from 2022 to 2024. The analysis shows the global market is now valued at $47 billion, medical consumables dominate at nearly 60% of all opportunities, contract durations vary significantly across items, and a shift away from framework agreements.
🚊Colombia: Cambio’s Paola Herrera investigates Colombia’s investments in rail infrastructure. She identifies questionable participants in a tender worth 3.4 trillion pesos (US$825 million) for the La Dorada - Chiriguaná corridor, a section of track that aims to connect the country’s interior with the Caribbean coast. The bidders included ghost firms, newly created companies, and businesses with inconsistent financial statements.
[Tips from practitioners]
In Indonesia, the analytics tool Opentender.net provides information on public procurement across 600+ ministries, institutions and local governments, using data sourced from the official e-government procurement system.
The tool, co-developed by Indonesia Corruption Watch and the National Public Procurement Agency (LKPP) gives citizens a way to alert authorities to corruption risks and other problems with public procurement, by conducting evidence-based and data-driven contract monitoring.
Here, the team at ICW share the 6 steps civic monitors can use to spot potential irregularities using red flags and data. In sum:
Prioritize which projects to monitor based on their risk level – high, medium, and low
Review the planning process
Identify similar procurements
Review the winning company’s track record
Review the project implementation
Analyze!
To see their work in action, check out this case study on monitoring the construction of a local community center in Indonesia’s South Sulawesi province.
[Data tools & resources]
A new platform, Observatorio Transfronterizo de la Corrupción (Cross-border Corruption Observatory), aims to help journalists, academics and public officials connect the dots of corruption cases across borders. Created by Milagros Salazar, the director of Peru-based investigative journalism center Convoca, the platform includes a database that allows users to search recent media investigations, allowing them to analyze by country and topic area, such as public contracts. Check out this interview with Salazar and journalist Gabriela Flores for ICIJ.
And I joined yet another of the Global Investigative Journalism Network’s excellent webinars, this time on how to acquire and use free satellite imagery to do things like track the construction of a highway or projects in protected areas. Check out the recording.
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?