This article entitled “Bridging the Gaps, Building the Bridge” highlights that to achieve any development initiative, there must be a well-thought-out blueprint or roadmap that indicates the steps and stages of implementing a change strategy, access to information is key.
Therefore, to enhance infrastructure transparency, data standards are adopted by different countries globally. Such data standards have evolved over time from Open Contracting Data Standards (OCDS) which have been integrated into the government system to improve openness and ensure accountability in the delivery of infrastructure projects and other related programmes. It defines what kind of information about the infrastructure project data is to be made available for public consumption and to hold public officials accountable for their action in the delivery of infrastructure for all. However, these Open Contracting Standards (OCDS) still had fewer data points for which infrastructure project data could be disclosed for the public to use to critique infrastructure development.
A new data standard was then again developed by CoST International in a joint effort with an Open Contracting Partnership called the ‘Open Contracting for Infrastructure Data Standard’ (OC4IDS). The purpose was to connect previously siloed information to disclose and track infrastructure development. It provides guidance to the government on which information to disclose at every stage of the implementation of infrastructure projects to ensure that public resources are spent wisely. This OC4IDS has been embraced by the Uganda government as a good standard that can contribute toward infrastructure transparency and harness citizen participation in public procurement processes. To popularize this OC4IDS, the CoST Uganda national secretariat created awareness among “12 procurement officials from 6 pilot entities in the OC4IDS standard and data entry into the GPP in February 2022. The result was a 100% compliance rate for the 12 infrastructure projects that were disclosed, representing 20% of the target”. By the end of the training about 136 infrastructure projects were disclosed as seen below and details in the training report.
It’s worth noting that the Ministry of Finance, Planning, and Economic Development (MoFPED) developed an electronic government procurement platform into which OC4IDS will be integrated, and once the process is accomplished, then infrastructure transparency shall be highly achieved, better infrastructure delivered, and infrastructure project data shall be at the disposal of citizens which will empower them to participate in procurement processes and also hold public officials to account. Even without this alignment procuring and disposing entities (PDEs) are applauded for disclosing infrastructure project data based on the Open Contracting for Infrastructure Data Standard (OC4IDS). More data are proactively disclosed than reactively which is a good gesture in infrastructure development in Uganda and an appeal for speedy alignment of OC4IDS into EGP by MoFPED to improve infrastructure transparency is very vital.
Despite, these significant attempts by PDEs to disclose infrastructure project data in line with OC4IDS, there are still challenges of capacities and processes that need to be addressed through further capacity building and training for the public officials. Finally, OC4IDS provided data points that have bridged the gap in infrastructure data disclosure because of the additional data points that contribute to building the bridge for citizen’s participation in public procurement. www.cost.or.ug
