The Public Expenditure Observatory (ODEP) and the Group of Reflections and Exchange on Public Procurement (GREM) have denounced the illegal allocation of an over-the-counter market under a public partnership contract -private to SECAD, a subsidiary of Panafricain green energy. Objective: to transform the household waste of the city of Kinshasa for an amount of two billion US dollars.

In a letter addressed to the Director General of the Public Procurement Regulatory Authority (ARMP), these two civil society organizations operating in the DRC’s citizen control report several irregularities in the procedure that led the national executive to conclude a memorandum of understanding. agreement with a certain Laurent CHUET, president of the company to which the contract was awarded.

Quality defect

Indeed, they observe, the public authority that concluded the legal act should be the City of Kinshasa and not the government of the Democratic Republic of Congo.

« Article 18 of the law n ° 18/016 of 09 July 2018 relating to the public-private partnership clearly indicates that the central power, the province and the decentralized territorial entity … design, propose and implement the development plan , the politics and strategies in the area of ​​public-private partnership « , they specify.

The ODEP and the CREM recall that the competences and attributions for the collection and treatment of waste are determined in particular by the organic law n ° 08/016 of October 07, 2008 on the composition, organization and functioning of the decentralized territorial Entities and their contributions. with the state and the provinces

Violation of proceedings

According to information in the possession of these two structures of civil society, the said memorandum of understanding would have been concluded without an open call for tenders for a call for competition from private operators, contrary to Article 25 paragraph 1 of the law. on the public-private partnership.

The ODEP and the CREM deplore the fact that no formal and substantive requirement provided for in Article 14 of the aforementioned Law has been complied with in order to justify the recourse by mutual agreement.

« The possibility that it was a spontaneous offer from the SECAD company does not exclude the use of the call for tenders for the call for competition and thus selected the best operator as required by Article 45 of Law no. 018/016, « they insist.

Nous avons saisi l'autorité de régulation des marchés publics pour que l'affaire soit traitée au Comité de Règlement de Différents, chargé de recevoir les dénonciations, les irrégularités constatées avant, pendant et après la passation d'un marché public. https://t.co/SUFckyfT2u

— Odeprdc (@odeprdc) July 24, 2019

Three recommendations

Given the irregularities in the award procedure for this contract, which is in breach of the law on the award of public contracts, the ODEP and the GREM invite SECAD to « refrain from entering into irregular legal trade at risk to be suspected of attempting to enter into a bribery pact « .

These civil society organizations ask the government to respect the constitutional and legal competences and attribution regarding public service of collection and treatment of waste.

In the city of Kinshasa, it was thus recommended to assume responsibility for its attributions in terms of public waste collection service. This, in full respect of the fundamental principle of legality provided for in Article 9 of the 2016 Law, determining the organization and functioning of the public services of central government, provinces and territorial entities decentralized.

As beneficiaries of this public waste collection and treatment service, ODEP and GREM hope that the proposals will be approved by the ARMP Dispute Settlement Committee (DRC) as a special decision and principle for efficient management of public-private partnership processes in the DRC.

Olivier KAMO