7 ms·

one word. kickbacks. in india this was and is present on every level but now the government is moving towards e-tendering on a B2G model where a govt official

one word. kickbacks. in india this was and is present on every level but now the government is moving towards e-tendering on a B2G model where a govt official can buy a chair from anywhere in the country or a float a tender and bidders would participate from anywhere. on a smaller scale things are back to old days with kickbacks and favoritism but lets say a govt contract to manage a website, well there will be competition. Now, i have worked with govt departments who float these tenders and many tenders which are to be given to a particular person often are given requirements taht only the intended person has and no one else. on paper it would look like only 1 person was eligible but in reality the tender itself was made according to the wishes and situaion of the contractor

AtlasBarfed 3y ago
The only other thing that underlies in mystifying things like this is the old "you don't get fired for IBM/Accenture/etc" thing. Large vendors exist as career insurance policies for upper middle management. Executives can't question them, regulators can't question them, etc. The kickback aspect I've always wondered about. It was also rife in things like medical device / drug sales, and probably still is. US Government jobs are so underpaid in DC that of course it must happen there as well.
- 2Gkashmiri 3y ago
  see. in the case of fujitsu for example. if i were fujitsu and in bed with the government, i would say, the work abc would cost $10 but how about you say the estimated project cost would be around $100 and only we would bid at $90. i (fujitsu) would give you $30 for your troubles in either cash or in kind, by giving you or your family members or their busiensses some favour in similar kind (like purchasing unnecessary stuff from them at inflated prices) and this kind of thing is very difficult to investigate.
rcbdev 3y ago
This is absolutely how govt. contracts in EU work - be it IT or construction. I remember public contracts made up ~20% of the Austrian GDP. Siemens infamously had a kickback arm in their Romanian subsidiary, SAP was fined over $200 million just recently for bribery charges.

AtlasBarfed 3y ago

The only other thing that underlies in mystifying things like this is the old "you don't get fired for IBM/Accenture/etc" thing. Large vendors exist as career insurance policies for upper middle management. Executives can't question them, regulators can't question them, etc. The kickback aspect I've always wondered about. It was also rife in things like medical device / drug sales, and probably still is. US Government jobs are so underpaid in DC that of course it must happen there as well.

2Gkashmiri 3y ago
see. in the case of fujitsu for example. if i were fujitsu and in bed with the government, i would say, the work abc would cost $10 but how about you say the estimated project cost would be around $100 and only we would bid at $90. i (fujitsu) would give you $30 for your troubles in either cash or in kind, by giving you or your family members or their busiensses some favour in similar kind (like purchasing unnecessary stuff from them at inflated prices) and this kind of thing is very difficult to investigate.

rcbdev 3y ago

This is absolutely how govt. contracts in EU work - be it IT or construction. I remember public contracts made up ~20% of the Austrian GDP. Siemens infamously had a kickback arm in their Romanian subsidiary, SAP was fined over $200 million just recently for bribery charges.