The Tunisian Experience in public procurement reform

1. The Tunisian Experience in public procurement reform

2. Intervention plan Introduction • Self assessment of the national public procurement system • The methodology used: Methodology for Assessing Procurement Systems • Implementation of the self assessment: the CFNC • The resultsachieved • The implementation of the reform: • Action plan: axiss of intervention • The modalities of implementing the action plan: the missions • Lessons learned of the assessment: difficulties and recommendations

3. Introduction • Public procurement as leverage of the national economy: more than 18% of the gross domestic product • Public procurement as instrument of implementing the fiscal policy of the country: almost 50% of the country budget is dedicated for procurement. • Public procurement as one of pillars of regional and local development: opening up the localities, infrastructures achievements…

4. Introduction (1) • Despite its crucial role, public procurement discipline suffers from many gaps: • Regulatory gaps:heavy procedures, vague modalities of use of certain procedures, lack of transparency and involvement of the civil society… • Technical gaps: lack of databases, archiving and statistic compilation system, lack of integration of new technologies in the procurement process…

5. Introduction (2) • Given these facts, the administration has chosen a global reform to modernise the public procurement procedures. • This reform was focused on: • Achieving a diagnostic: self assessment of the public procurement national system • Designing an action plan. • Implementing the reform according to the axiss of intervention • This project has been initiated and is being followed with the collaboration of the World Bank and the African Development Bank

6. Self assessment of the public procurement national system

7. Genesis of the self assessment • The budgetary crisis following the revolution of 14th January 2011. • Obtaining financial support within an emergency program providing general support to the Country budget: Social Inclusion and Transition Support Program ( SITSP) with an amount of 1409 millions USD • Convergence of actions approved for financing by the World Bank and the African Development Bank on the level of the necessity of reviewing the legal framework regulating public procurement in Tunisia

8. Genesis of the self assessment • The issuance of the decree no. 2011-623 of 23 May 2011 withspecific provisions on the regulations of public procurement. • This legislation made the procurement process faster, amended and replaced various articles of the previous legislation to bring more transparency and efficiency. • Issuance of the decree no. 2012-515 of 2 June 2012 modifying the decree 2002-3158 of 17 December 2002 and the decree 2011-623 of 23 May 2011

9. The methodology used

10. Principle of the methodology • Tool chosen from the Paris Declaration on aid effectiveness to carry out the reinforcement of public procurement national systems. • This method involves evaluating the system on the basis of four components or pillars. Each pillar is composed of indicators which are sub-categorised into subsidiary indicators. • The assessment consist of scoring each sub- criteria from 0 to 3. • The average of the scores of each pillar reflect the detected performance level.

11. The assessment pillars: pillar 1 • Pillar 1 entitled “ legal and regulatory framework” involves << legal and regulatory instruments of the highest level (national law, legal act, regulation, decree, etc.) until detailed regulations, procedures and officially used bidding documents>> as well as << the existence, availability and quality of enforcement regulations, operational procedures, manuals, examples of bidding documents and conditions of standard contracts>> • This pillar is composed of 2 indicators and 14 subsidiary indicators

12. The assessment pillars: pillar 2 • Pillar 2 entitled “ Institutional framework and management capacity” << examine, in practice, the way the public procurement system works as defined by the current legal and institutional framework in the country, through bodies and management systems who are stakeholders on the general governance of public sector in the country>> • This pillar is composed of 3 indicators and 12 subsidiary indicators

13. The assessment pillars: pillar 3 • Pillar 3 entitled “Acquisition activities and procurement practice” << examine the efficiency and operational utility of public procurement system on the level of the execution entity responsible for taking the different acquisition actions. It is interested in procurement as a mean to assess the quality and efficiency of the system when the acquisition procedures are put into practice>>. • This pillar is composed of 2 indicators and 13 subsidiary indicators

14. The assessment pillars: pillar 3 • Pillar 4 entitled “ Integrity and transparency of public procurement system” involves according to the methodology << four indicators considered necessary for providing guaranty of a system functioning with integrity, insuring appropriate controls promoting its functioning in accordance with the legal and regulatory framework and which has the measure to fight any risk of corruption within the system. It deals as well with important aspects of the public procurement system apart of the whole control system. This pillar focuses on aspect of the public procurement system and the governance framework and tries to ensure that they are defined and structured in way that contributes to the integrity and transparency of the system.>> • This pillar is composed of 4 indicators and 18 subsidiary indicators

15. The implementation of the self assessmentthe CFNC

16. Coordination and follow up national committee ( CFNC) • The Coordination and follow up national committee (CFNC) was established by a decision of the prime minister • It regroups representatives of different categories: • The big public purchasers: State, local communities, public establishment of an administrative character, public companies • The organs of control: Court of auditors, competition council, control of public spending, general control of public services, general control of finance. • The Private Sector: representative of the TUICH (Tunisian union of industry commerce and handicrafts) • Civil Society and academics: Associations for the rationalization of public finances like the ACIAF (Association of control, inspection and audit frameworks within Tunisian public structures)

17. The CNFC powers • The mandate given to the committee is to: • Validate the assessments and the recommendations of the different working groups. • Validate the action plan resulting from the recommendations • Monitor the implementation of the measures chosen by the committee and endorsed by the government

18. Work of the CNFC • Applying the assessment criteria, pillar by pillar, to the public procurement national system and identify the degree of compliance to this international standard. • Giving a score from 0 to 3 to each of the 55 subsidiary indicators while justifying each score. • Making recommendations to overcome weaknesses identified and to consolidate strength points. • Designing a plan that regroups all the system reform stages. • Validating the final report of the self assessment • Following up with the implementation of the action plan.

19. CNFC organization • This committee was organised in four working groups, one group per assessment pillar. • The composition of each working group was determined according to the specifications of each designated pillar. • Each working group is composed of: • A president • Two rapporteurs • Members • CNFC has a presidency and a secretariat. The latter one is composed of : • General rapporteur • Independent consultant

20. Functioning of the CNFC • The organisation of the assessment work is done as follows: • The working groups are responsible of assessing the public procurement national system according to the approach of the pillar designated to each one of them. • Reunion between the rapporteurs of each working group and the general rapporteur to discuss the scoring, the justification, the recommendations and the actions to be taken • Reunion of CNFC presidency and secretariat will consolidate and summarize the results obtained as well as enable the preparation of the reports to be submitted in the plenary session. • The results of the work are presented and debated pillar by pillar during the scoring phase and action by action during the phase of the designing of the action plan, during the CNFC plenary sessions.

21. CNFC working modalities

22. The plenary sessions • Gather all the CNCF members, rapporteurs, secretariat and management. • Work is facilitated by the presence of experts from the World Bank and the African Development Bank and a permanent expert proposed by the AfDB • Plenary sessions were organised as follows: • 22 March 2012: presentation of the methodology to the members • 16, 17 and 18 April 2012: Validation of the scores given by the working groups • 31 May and 1st June 2012: Validation of the action plan • 26 June 2012: Validation of the final version of the self assessment report

23. The results achieved

24. Summary of scores achieved

26. Analysis of the results: Pillar 1 • Pillar “ legal and regulatory framework” to consolidate by bringing to the legislative framework provisions that promote the transparency of the procedures and reinforce and define the powers of the institutions that manage and control all public procurement phases in Tunisia

27. Analysis of the results: pillar 2 • Pillar “ Institutional framework and management capacity” to be reinforced by organising the standard functions of management and control and by reviewing the competences of the different institutions involved in the procurement process.

28. Analysis of the results: Pillar 3 • Pillar “Acquisition activities and procurement practice’’ can be more improved by the reorganisation of the management of the human and material resources in charge of the management and control of public procurement and by bringing more flexibility and transparency to the management mechanisms of disputes between the administration and the bidders.

29. Analysis of the results: Pillar 4 • Pillar “ Integrity and transparency of public procurement system” to be completely reviewing by reorganising the competence and intervention modalities of the different monitoring bodies, reviewing the remedies in case of conflict, improving the transparency and by adopting anticorruption legal provisions.

30. II. The implementation of the reform

31. The report of the self-assessment • The work of the CNFC was consolidated within a report split into two essentials parts: • The results of the assessment and the recommendations of the working groups. • The action plan that contains the recommended interventions to reform the Tunisian public procurement system. • As a result of the assessment, the component of the action plan were implemented as validated by the CNFC in the plenary session of 26 June 2012 et as approved by a ministerial council held 24 August 2012

32. The action plan

33. axes of the action plan • The action plan is built around 5 axes: • These axes represent the priority areas of intervention in relation with the management and control of public procurement, procedures, information, efficiency and human resources. • The axes are entitles as follows: • axis I: Governance • axis II: Rationalisation of the legal framework • axis III: Transparency • axis IV: Performance • axis v: Professionalism

34. Axis 1: Governance • This axis is dedicated to the measures to be undertaken in order to consolidate the control bodies, remedies and the confidentiality provisions in the public procurement system.

35. Axis 2: Rationalisation of the legal framework • This axis is oriented towards the reform of the legal framework which governs public procurement in Tunisia: more coherence and hierarchy between texts, consolidation with other texts with the same vocation, updating and adopting general documents and procedures manuals…

36. Axis 3: Transparency • This axis of intervention contains the actions that aim to generalize the publication of tenders and the decisions awarding the contracts, the spread of control and audit reports, the archiving and online consultation of the different documents created and used during procurement as well as the consolidation of the partnership between the administration and the civil society, private sector and universities within the public purchase process.

37. Axis 4: Performance • The improvement of the performance of the public procurement system requires a better use of the new information and communication technologies, adopting the culture of results-based management and the quality assurance, a degree of intervention and interaction more refined on the level of information systems and databases …

38. Axis 5: Professionalism • This intervention axis relates to the consolidation of the capacities in term of human resources dedicated to the management and control of public procurement • The professionalism is through the evaluation and the satisfaction of the real training needs of the public purchasers, controllers and auditors of public procurement (continuous training program, degree training both in the level of universities and schools…) as well as through implementing a real occupation of public purchaser in the level of public administration with all that comes in terms of specific career path, remuneration,…

39. Implementation modalities

40. Adopting an action plan • The report of the self-assessment of the Tunisian public procurement system as well as the action plan designed for it were adopted during the ministerial council of 24 August 2012. • This same ministerial council has put the CNFC in charge of driving the implementation of the different components of the action plan

41. Implementation modalities • The choices made with regard to the implementation of the different axes of the action plan consist of: • Using the services of independent consultants of the administration for the implementation of the action plan • Counting on the support of the World Bank et African Development Bank who have financed and supported all the phases of the assessment and the conception of the action plan. • Exploring the technical and financial assistance of the other partners of Tunisia

42. The missions to be carried out • Legal Mission: which incorporates the reform of the governance and the legal framework regulating public procurement. • information system mission: regarding the modernisation of the information system and electronic management of public procurement. This incorporates the generalisation of the national electronic public procurement system (TUNEPS) • Quality mission: establishing a quality assurance system in the level of public procurement process and its management • Human resources mission: interested in the management of the careers of public procurement stakeholders and in the implementation of a national procurement training strategy

43. Legal Mission

44. Information system mission

45. Information system mission (1)

46. Quality mission

47. Human resources mission

48. Degree of progress of the implementation • Tunisia has obtained the World Bank grant of 57.000$ to conduct the legal mission • The choice of consultant who will assume the responsibilities of this mission have been made on the basis of the terms of reference and selection procedure of individual consultant. • The completion of the mission is anticipated by end of June 2013 at the latest

49. Degree of progress of the implementation (1) • Tunisia has obtained a grant of 70,000$ from the World Bank to conduct the training actions within the human resources mission. • These actions cover the training of the trainers and the training of the members of the procurement committee in the public procurement field.

50. Degree of progress of the implementation (2) • This conference is an occasion to present to you the results obtained within the framework of this self-assessment as well as the components of the action plan. • The involvement of the different donors for the implementation of the components of the action plan is open for all our partners interested in taking part in the success of this experience.