Open Contracting in
MYANMAR
At a glance
Photo by Paul Arps
Open contracting can transform public procurement through better data, analysis and
engagement with businesses and civil society. It involves (1) disclosure of open data and
documents about the planning, procurement, and management of public contracts; and (2)
engagement with civic and business users of information, leading to improved accountability
and redress by government agencies or contractors through acting on the feedback received.
COUNTRY FACTS
COUNTRY HIGHLIGHTS
Uses e-procurement system
NO
Myanmar is undergoing a rapid transition
from authoritarian to democratic rule
Implements Open Contracting
Data Standard
NO
Ongoing peace process negotiations may lead to
decentralization of decision making
Active open contracting
infomediaries
NO
Political leadership explicitly supports open
contracting
OPEN CONTRACTING OPPORTUNITIES IN MYANMAR
The most important forward step on procurement transparency in Myanmar is determining how procurement ties into the peace
process and the possibility of federation. This will involve coming up with a compromise between donors and technocrats’
desires for a centralized and unified system and the current arrangement’s concessions to ethnic and armed groups. This could
potentially take place through things like transparent quotas in procurement in ethnic areas.
There is a room for collaboration between Myanmar’s government and the political class to ensure that open contracting means
citizen involvement in contracting, rather than just the public release of contracts. Multi-ministerial events, particularly among
procuring ministries, could be used to generate temporary norms for open tendering, share potentially siloed work, and reinvigorate projects lost in departmental restructuring.
There needs to be much greater public involvement in the creation of new legislation, ideally through public consultation on the
draft laws. Current laws should be made publically available and easily accessible. Myanmar’s Public Financial Management Law
should require the publication of procurement plans, tender notices, bidding documents, award notices (including winner, price,
reasons, and non-competitively awarded contracts), full contracts including technical specifications, and implementation details.
Training for core procurement departments that have shown political will but lack technical capacity, could enable them to
increase transparency in their procurement processes. Similarly, support could be given to private websites and media outlets
with an interest in tendering to help them develop skills in tracking the implementation of contracts.
Training or capacity building involving procuring agencies should stress the need for engagement with clients and the public, and
the potential for feedback mechanisms.
This report provides an overview of the country specific
conditions for open contracting. It is not intended for
cross-country comparison, measurement or scoring.
POLICY
PARTICIPATION
INSTITUTIONS
LAW
HIGH READINESS
DISCLOSURE
LOW READINESS
EVALUATION OF OPEN CONTRACTING READINESS IN MYANMAR
LAW:
Myanmar’s legal environment has been underdeveloped through a reliance on the constitution and presidential decrees at the expense of
legislation. Requests for access to procurement information are typically in reference to the constitution, which entitles citizens to an active role in
engaging with their government. However, the constitution also allows the government to restrict freedoms which are perceived to cause public
disharmony, and Myanmar has several laws that impede freedom of information. Both a Public Financial Management Law and a Right to
Information Law are currently being drafted. The former will contain provisions on open contracting, but the latter does not overwrite repressive
public harmony provisions.
POLICY:
The political environment in Myanmar is broadly enthusiastic about increased transparency. However, “open government” appears to be
unidirectional, with Myanmar’s government providing information to citizens rather than engaging them in decision making. Public procurement
reform will take place through the Ministry of Planning and Finance, which has traditionally held less political sway than military-dominated
ministries. The centralization of public procurement has the potential to inflame intranational tensions, with uncompetitive contracting sometimes
used to maintain the tenuous peace between armed groups.
INSTITUTIONS:
The Ministry of Planning and Finance leads on public procurement as part of a broad reform of Myanmar’s public financial system. Although,
Myanmar’s government has traditionally been dominated by the military-run ministries like Home Affairs. Reforms pushed by the Ministry of
Planning and Finance have faced opposition from procuring agencies. More powerful ministries, including the Office of the Attorney General and
the Office of the Auditor General, have traditionally treated public procurement as a corruption issue, focusing on prosecuting dishonest civil
servants rather than increasing transparency through the release of data and citizen engagement. If open procurement necessitates empowering
a central agency to oversee state and regional bodies, it could be rejected as a backwards step for regional autonomy.
DISCLOSURE:
The current open contracting situation is poor. Information is released in a piecemeal manner by numerous sources. Outlets include government
departments, government-sanctioned newspapers, private advertisers and nongovernmental bodies. Often the data released is merely either the
availability of contracts or government-spending announcements. There are no formal mechanisms for redress, and there are inconsistent
procedures across procuring bodies as to what information is to be made available.
PARTICIPATION:
In a small number of cases, open procurement data has been used to mobilize civil society. This has typically taken place through investigative
journalism or ethnic CSOs, which uncover information about unjust procurement practices in order to mobilize Myanmar’s citizens on a specific
issue (for instance, a dam that likely had corruption in the contacting process). In sections of government where the appetite for open contracting
is strong, capacity is weak, and there is a need for online and offline mechanisms for these departments to engage with open contracting.
Alternatively, a unified citizen-led system may offer regularity in the contracting space.
© 2016 Hivos. Some rights reserved. This work is part of the Open Contracting Data programme of Hivos and Article 19, the assessment was
conducted under the supervision of Open Contracting Partnership. Licensed under Creative Commons License Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0
International (CC BY-SA 4.0). If you are interested in the full study, please contact us at [email protected].