Embrace open contracting to curb corruption-Kibwana

Makueni governor Kivutha Kibwana has asked institutions to adopt open contracting as one of the ways to curb rampant corruption in the country.

Kibwana said that open contracting ensures transparency and accountability in all government’s processes hence locking out any chance for corruption and ill practices.

“There are other ways of dealing with corruption apart from jailing and that is open contracting. Let us get into transparency systems,” Kibwana said.

Kibwana was speaking on Friday when he hosted the Hivos Foundation director Edwin Huizing during an open contracting debriefing on Makueni’s progress.

The county in partnership with Hivos embarked on open contracting in 2018, a move to ensure transparency, accountability and integrity in government processes.

In 2018/2019 financial year, the county government used open procurement for tendering processes.

Hivos East Africa regional director Mendi Njonjo disclosed that Makueni is the second world wide documented case to ever use observers during the evaluation stage in open contracting.

The county invited observers to take part in the evaluation stage during the construction of Wote green park and purchase of reconstitution line for Kalamba Fruit Processing plant tenders.

Makueni together with Hivos are in the final stages to launch the open contracting data standards, a platform that will enable the masses to interact with all the tendering information online.