A real-time platform for tenders, awards and outcomes — and why publishing the data is the most important step.
Public procurement is where most of a government's spending decisions actually get made. It is also, in this country, the part of government that operates with the least visibility. Our procurement-digitisation commitment is not technically ambitious — it is politically ambitious. The technology is well-understood. The political will to publish the data is what has been missing.
What we will build
A single national procurement portal that publishes, in real time: every tender notice above a defined threshold, every bid submitted, every award made, the contract value, the contract duration, and — critically — the delivery outcomes against the original specification. None of this is novel. Several regional comparators run systems like it. We are simply choosing to do the work.
Why publication is the hard part
Building the portal is straightforward; the technical specification could be drafted in weeks. The hard part is committing to publish unfavourable findings. A procurement system whose outcomes data only shows the good news is a propaganda tool, not an accountability tool. We commit to publishing every dataset, including the embarrassing ones.
You cannot fix a problem you refuse to measure. And you cannot measure a problem if the data is locked in a desk drawer.
The numbers we expect to surface
When the portal goes live, the dataset will include a number of awards that, on inspection, will not look defensible. We are bracing the secretariat for this. The point of transparency is not that the underlying behaviour is good — the point is that bad behaviour becomes visible and therefore correctable.
The accompanying legislation will require every awarding authority to respond, in writing and on the portal, to any award that triggers an Auditor General query. Responses will be published alongside the original award. No more findings disappearing into ministerial inboxes.
How long will it take
Eighteen months from formation of government to first version of the portal in production. Twenty-four months to full nationwide rollout including the regional procurement authorities. The technology vendor will be selected through — appropriately — an open published tender.
What we are asking for
Public submissions on the portal specification are open now. If you have technical experience with procurement systems — particularly if you have worked on regional comparators — write to the policy team. We are building this with the country, not for it.