20 Thousand Billion Centimes… State Losses In “Consensual” Deals!

 • Reports of judicial experiences completed by the inspectors of the General Inspectorate of Finance in corruption cases brought to the financial and economic pole at the Sidi M’hamed Court in the capital Algiers, or those that were decided at the level of first and second degrees, confirmed that the state lost 20 thousand billion centimes, as a result of granting public deals according to the principle of “simple consent”.

• According to information in the possession of “Echorouk”, the reports of the experiences of the General Inspectorate of Finance showed that hundreds of public deals, especially in major projects, were awarded by officials of the rank of ministers, governors, and state executives to the “financial cartel”, which were carried out by simple consent, and that more than 60 percent of projects have not been completed while the funds allocated to them have not been recovered.

• The process of auditing the accounts in the total amount of public deals awarded under the framework of “simple consent” indicated that the complexes specialized in the achievement of major projects, and whose owners are in prison under investigation or sentenced, are the ones who caused serious damage to the public treasury as a result of their benefit from transactions of an “urgent” nature, which were used in a way that contravenes the laws of legislation in force in this context.

• Recently, the Minister of Justice, Keeper of the Seals, Belkacem Zeghmati, admitted in his talk about public deals that the country had allocated in the past decades huge sums of money to implement economic and social development projects, and despite the facilities and programs achieved, no one can deny that huge sums have been wasted and depleted.

At the expense of the established goals, this waste has not been spared in every stage of the public procurement process, starting from the stage of conception and design to the point of receiving projects, if they are actually completed.

• Therefore, he stressed, in his speech at the opening of a forum on “the problem of project maturity and its impact on public procurement disputes” which was hosted by the Higher Judicial School in Kolea, that developing and improving the legal system for public procurement in accordance with international standards is one of the stakes that those involved in the matter must fulfill, especially as the new constitution has devoted special attention to it in its Article 132, which provides for the evaluation of the general rules related to it.

• The National Anti-Corruption Commission had previously proposed a review and reconsideration of the public procurement law, explaining that it was observed in past years that granting deals according to the simple consent principle is “codified corruption,” and therefore the abolition of this procedure has become inevitable.

• The same commission also proposed transparent and fair procedures during awarding of public procurement, in addition to using automated media in order to avoid any manipulation, pointing to the focus on five pillars aiming to achieve seventeen goals by adopting 72 measures and procedures so as to stem the scourge of corruption and close all its outlets at all levels in all departments and institutions.