Other Key Activities

      On October 2022, the Government Procurement Policy Board (GPPB) and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) entered into a data-sharing agreement to promote transparency and improve the process of validating the bidder’s qualification in the public procurement.

      In general, the data-sharing agreement is part of the SEC’s action plan to address strategic deficiencies in the country’s corporate governance, which placed the country under increased monitoring by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF).Among the FATF recommendations is to ensure that adequate, accurate, and current information on the beneficial ownership and control of juridical persons is shared among government agencies to prevent the misuse of juridical persons for money laundering, terrorist financing, and other illicit and proliferation financing. This also includes the requirement to ensure that public authorities have access to beneficial ownership information of juridical persons in the course of public procurement to counter graft and corruption.

      The GPPB, through its Technical Support Office (TSO), conducted coordination meetings with the SEC and reviewed thoroughly the proposed data-sharing agreement. Subsequently, the GPPB-TSO recommended the signing of the data-sharing agreement.

      As the Office intensifies its procurement reforms and initiatives on participatory procurement, the GPPB-TSO also engaged the Open Government Partnership (OGP) through the participation in their Asia Pacific Open Contracting Community of Practice pioneer cohort of the OGP flagship program last March 2023 as the Office intensifies its procurement reforms and initiatives on participatory procurement.