Another form of review of public procurement is through
powers granted to the legislative arm of the state
(Congress, Parliament, Bundestag, or Knesset). In almost
every country in the world, the elected body has its own
procurement oversight committee. It supervises the
expenditures of the executive branch and makes sure that
they conform to the budget. The difference between such
supervisory, parliamentary, bodies and their executive
branch counterparts - is that they feel free to criticize
public procurement not only in the context of its
adherence to budget constraints or its cleanliness - but
also in a political context. In other words, these
committees do not limit themselves to asking HOW - but
also engage in asking WHY. Why this specific expense in
this given time and location - and not that expense,
somewhere else or some other time. These elected bodies
feel at liberty - and often do - intervene in the very
decision making process and in the order of priorities.
They have the propensity to alter both quite often.
The most famous such committee is, arguably, the
Congressional Budget Office (CBO). It is famous because
it is non-partisan and technocratic in nature. It is really
made of experts which staff its offices.
Its apparent - and real - neutrality makes its judgements
and recommendations a commandment not to be avoided
and, almost universally, to be obeyed. The CBO operates
for and on behalf of the American Congress and is, really,
the research arm of that venerable parliament. Parallelly,
the executive part of the American system - the
Administration - has its own guard against waste and
worse: the Office of Management and Budget (OMB).
Both bodies produce learned, thickset, analyses, reports,
criticism, opinions and recommendations. Despite quite a
prodigious annual output of verbiage - they are so highly
regarded, that virtually anything that they say (or write) is
minutely analysed and implemented to the last letter with
an air of awe.
Only a few other parliaments have committees that carry
such weight. The Israeli Knesset have the extremely
powerful Finance Committee which is in charge of all
matters financial, from appropriations to procurement.
Another parliament renowned for its tight scrutiny is the
French Parliament - though it retains very few real
powers.
But not all countries chose the option of legislative
supervision. Some of them relegated parts or all of these
functions to the executive arm.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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