In this week's soapbox Mark Pyman, leader of Transparency International UK's global defence against corruption programme, says that procurement professionals should be in the lead when trying to reduce corruption.
"Reducing corruption risk in the defence sector is about individual
firms strengthening their compliance programmes, and governments
reforming their procurement process.
Government reforms focus on ensuring the goods to be bought are those
required by the defence policy, that the outcome requirements are not
biased in favour of any one contractor and that the competition is well
structured and run with integrity. Single-sourcing averages 50 per cent
of many national defence acquisition budgets and often presents an
opportunity for corruption."
What efforts can procurement take to increase compliance and reduce corruption?