Community Contracting in the Gewogs
Background Community Contracting refers to awarding of contract work directly to a local community group, called Community Contract Group (CCG), without fully applying the procurement rules and regulations of the Government (Community Contracting Protocol 2021). The gewog administrations are the implementing agencies for community contracts. Community contracting has indeed benefitted the community but construction and procurement are some of the areas always vulnerable to corruption.
A recent study by the Anti-Corruption Commission highlights that the participation and inclusion of citizens in the planning and priority setting, budgeting process, monitoring and evaluation process are very low. It has been found that of the existing committees, 98 percent function without Terms of References and are controlled by Local Government Officials as opposed to greater participation and inclusion of citizens.
Research on community contracting has reported that while there are benefits, some pressing issues faced while implementing community contract are construction quality, poor monitoring, lack of skilled workers, time and cost overruns and corruption. Refer the attached below for more details.