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Everyone knows that a clean bidding process is no absolute guarantee of good performance during contract implementation. Opportunities for cheating and corruption do not, unfortunately, end with the Award of Contract. Thankfully, there are several Civil Society Organizations that specialize in contract implementation monitoring.
PWI has always been at the forefront when it comes to fighting corruption and inefficiency during the bidding process. Recently, however, we have begun to “diversify” -- that is, we have begun to include contract implementation monitoring in our portfolio.
For instance, PWI has signed a MOA to join the Bantay Lansangan, (roughly, “Road Watch”) a multi-sectoral initiative for improving transparency and accountability in the implementation of the DPWH’s road projects.
More recently still, PWI’s Ms Carole Belisario assisted Mr David Stafford, Consultant for the Department for International Development (DFID), an aid agency of the United Kingdom, to hold a series of meetings and workshops with government, civil society, and various funding agencies to explore the possibility of piloting the Construction Sector Transparency (CoST) Initiative.
The CoST Initiative aims to improve transparency in the implementation of publicly-funded construction projects. The CoST concept has been patterned after the Extraction Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI), a highly successful program for transparency in the oil and mining sector.
Mr David Stafford came to the Philippines to explain the CoST concept to a large multi-sectoral audience on 5 September 2007 at the Discovery Suites. The discussions that followed were lively and positive. At the cabinet meeting on 11 September, President Arroyo gave the go-signal for CoST. The Philippines will be one of nine pilot countries for the CoST Initiative.
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