Public Contracting

Public contracts play a vital role in the financial health of a country and the lives of its citizens by generating revenues and providing essential goods, works, and services. Public contracts cover all economic sectors and types of agreements, including procurement, licenses and concessions and the sale of public property. It has been estimated that public contracts procuring goods, works, and services alone are worth approximately USD 9.5 trillion per year.(Kenny, 2012). Therefore, it is critical that public contracts should be fairly awarded and offer good value-for-money. However, in many countries around the world, public contracting has been identified as the government activity most vulnerable to wastefulness, mismanagement, inefficiency, and corruption.