Public Procurement is an important activity, representing a large share of the economy. In Kiribati, it is as high as 40% of the GDP, excluding donor funded projects. Around AUD$70m are subject to Public Procurement, based on national public funds (tax incomes) and traditionally around the same amount from international donors.
As such, Public Procurement is an important upstream input to economic growth. Wisely performed, efficient and effective Public Procurement offers substantial savings and quality increase of public services, i.e., Value for Money. It is also a tool for domestic economic and social growth, for instance by providing opportunities for local suppliers, e.g., by market alignment, training and information, market creations, domestic preferences, such as benefits to international tenderer offering domestic subcontracting, joint ventures, technology transfer, etc.
Public Procurement in Kiribati is decentralised to the Procuring Entities, however, under the principle of 'Early Detection and Correction', which means that there are certain checkpoints during the process, to prevent errors being discovered at a late stage, which would make them difficult and time consuming to correct.