Public procurement – the process by which the government contracts for the provision of goods, services, and infrastructure – presents one of the biggest corruption risks in modern society. Opportunistic officials find creative ways to include bribery, fraud, collusion, nepotism, bid-rigging, and other corrupt practices as part of the deal, which becomes a lucrative enterprise for them.
The direct costs of procurement corruption include loss of public trust, wasted public funds, poor quality goods and services, lack of competition, and more. It is therefore vital that non-government parties such as journalists or civil society organisations are able to monitor public procurement processes and identify red flags through transparent and easily accessible data, regularly published procurement information, and clear reporting mechanisms for transgressions.
The Global Data Barometer (GDB) is an assessment tool that measures how effectively countries are fostering healthy data ecosystems. It examines the infrastructure, processes, and strategies needed to ensure that data serves the public good, providing a detailed view of governance, data availability, and ecosystem capabilities that underscore data’s role in society.
The second edition was released in June 2025, focusing on countries in Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean (LAC). The main thematic clusters of political integrity, land management, company information, public procurement, and public finance encompass 27 primary and 11 secondary indicators. Data used in the report was collected between 31 August 2022 and 1 September 2024. Countries are given an overall, or national score on a scale of 0-100, where 100 reflects ‘best practices’ aligned with internationally agreed norms and frameworks.
“The global data landscape is at a pivotal juncture,” the report notes. “This new edition of the GDB is being released at a time when the responsible use of data and AI must be balanced against intensifying concerns about opacity and inequality.”
Public procurement data is the most widely available cluster of data included in the latest GDB, says non-profit organisation Open Contracting Partnership. “This is encouraging since public contracting is the world’s largest marketplace, covering $13-trillion of spending every year. Given its scope and scale, effective management of procurement is critical to addressing many of the world’s most significant challenges, from climate change to inequality.”
Procurement reform and professionalisation of South Africa’s public procurement sector was one of former chief justice Raymond Zondo’s recommendations in the final report of the state capture commission. The commission found that, among other causes, interference from members of the executive in government’s procurement function enabled state capture to thrive. It further identified specific procurement-related challenges such as professional capacity, fragmentation, and operational flexibility.
Public procurement data improvements
“Healthy data ecosystems are essential, yet the GDB’s findings reveal that while many countries are improving data governance and making progress on transparency, implementation remains uneven,” says the report. “LAC generally exhibits stronger foundational capabilities than Africa, but both regions face critical challenges in sustaining open data, building interoperability, and equipping public officials with the skills needed to govern and reuse data effectively.”
Out of the 43 countries assessed, it is encouraging to see that 41 of them publish at least some government procurement data online. “Half of them (21) release it in machine-readable formats; 16 countries make machine-readable data available as a whole through bulk downloads or APIs.”
Machine readability is one of the core principles of open data. It refers to datasets that are provided in a format that can be automatically read and processed by a computer, such as CSV, JSON, XML, etc. In contrast, formats such as PDF are not machine-readable, though they are obviously human-readable.
In general, the second edition GDB indicates that countries have achieved strong progress in the implementation of regulatory frameworks around procurement data. The average score for LAC was 78.16, and for Africa it was 75.79. Apart from Liberia whose framework is not applied nationally, all other countries explicitly require the publication of procurement data within their frameworks, and results illustrate full compliance with 100% of the countries effectively publishing procurement data for the general public.
Corruption Watch uses such data in its digital public procurement monitoring tool called Procurement Watch. This tool aggregates three specific kinds of national procurement data otherwise only available in PDFs on the National Treasury’s website, and makes it easier to search, interpret, and understand. The data covered pertains to deviations (from pre-existing procurement procedures); expansions (of the initial terms of a public contract); and blacklisted suppliers (suppliers that have been barred from doing business with the government).
In the Africa region, public procurement has emerged as a “standout area of progress. Several countries have strengthened legal frameworks and decentralised procurement systems to enhance transparency and accountability. While the regional average is 65.48, a closer look reveals that countries like Uganda (92.38), Kenya (88.34), and South Africa (87.76) are making strides to effectively govern public procurement processes”.
Africa does, however, continue to face serious implementation challenges due to weak infrastructures, limited interoperability, and gaps in institutional capacity, says the report.
South Africa: the highs and the lows
South Africa at 47.79 achieved the top overall score in the Africa region. Compared to the global situation, while the country did not manage to cross the 50 threshold, it does sit significantly higher than the average overall score of 36.82. Its strength compared to other countries in the region is data management, while its comparative weakness is asset declarations.
The country’s score of 87.76 for the public procurement cluster was eclipsed only by that for public finance at 90.18. South Africa’s potentially impressive overall score was dragged down by weak performances in critical competencies (the capabilities and steps to support effective data production, storage, publication, and use) at 18.06, and political integrity (including areas such as asset and interest declarations, political finance, and right to information or RTI) at 30.56.
South Africa’s overall score places it in the medium-capability group in terms of its capacity to collect, manage, share, and use data for the public good.
The report notes that the country publishes data online in eight out of 10 assessed indicators: Beneficial Ownership, Company Register, Budget and Spend Data, Asset Declarations, Lobbying Data, Political Finance Data, RTI Performance Data, Public Procurement Data, and Land Tenure and Existing Land Use.
Furthermore, it has laws, policies, or regulations requiring collection of data in six out of seven assessed indicators, and laws, policies, or regulations requiring publication of data in three out of seven assessed indicators.
