From Fishing to Catching: Developing Actionable Red Flags in Public Procurement to Prevent and Control Corruption

Abstract

How can entities responsible for public procurement more reliably detect collusion and other irregular behavior? Most of the existing red flag tools are based on ex post analysis of public procurement data and are not integrated into national procurement systems. This does not allow them to identify irregularities in a timely manner, negatively affecting the efficiency and transparency of public spending. This document describes the red flags solution implemented in Paraguay, which contributes to solving these problems. It combines rule-based and machine learning algorithms to provide public officials with accurate, real-time information to reliably detect irregularities in the procurement process, without reducing efficiency.