Delegates Call for More Detailed Reporting, Diversity in Procurement of United Nations Goods, Services, as Fifth Committee Reviews Secretariat’s Supply Chain Management
As the Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) met today to consider how the United Nations acquires, delivers and manages goods and services, delegates stressed the importance of ensuring transparency and diversity in this process and called for more detailed reporting.
“We demand greater accountability of the Office of Supply Chain Management to Member States,” said the representative of the Russian Federation, who spoke on behalf of a number of countries. The representative of Uganda, speaking for the Group of 77 and China, stressed that the Organization’s supply chain activities must be guided by the principles of best value for money, fairness, integrity and transparency, effective international competition and the best interests of the Organization.
Both speakers were referring to the report presented by Anne Marie van den Berg, Assistant Secretary-General in the Department of Operational Support’s Office of Supply Chain Management, on the Office’s activities (document A/78/679). That process begins and ends with clients, she said, adding that these include, among others, peacekeeping missions, special political missions, offices away from Headquarters and regional and economic commissions. Her Office, which was established in January 2019, helps clients with their own procurement, identifies existing stock, recommends existing contracts or conducts procurement directly.
It also supports delivery, contract management, warehousing, stock management, and local transportation, she said, adding that once a product is no longer needed, the Office manages its disposal or return, and “seek[s] to incorporate a more circular supply chain process to reduce costs, time, and be more sustainable”. Highlighting efforts to re-align Headquarters resources to focus more on categories of higher value to clients through end-to-end solutions, she said the Office aims to align with the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, while also abiding by the rules and regulations that govern procurement.
Abdallah Bachar Bong, Chair of the Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions, introducing its related report (document A/78/805), underscored the need for more data and analysis, in particular concerning procurement in the UN Secretariat, as well as detailed information on the supply chain oversight and governance mechanism. He also recommended a more detailed analysis of the changes in spending, in particular for the 10 major categories, and pointed to the need for specific recommendations regarding rationalizing the spending under information and communication technology and air operations, which are the top two major categories procured by the United Nations.
Acknowledging the merits of organizing business seminars in developing countries, he said the Secretary-General must expand the beneficiaries of the seminars to include countries with low participation in UN procurement. Turning to category-specific outreach, he recommended an in-depth analysis of category management, with a detailed explanation of its operational aspects, including the measures in place to ensure the segregation of duties and the expected costs and benefits. He also recommended the inclusion of detailed information on the supply chain planning tools and their impact on the acquisition of services and goods. It is crucial to fully implement the recommendations of the Board of Auditors and the Advisory Committee in a prompt, timely manner and continue to hold programme managers accountable for the non-implementation of recommendations, he added.
The call for more detailed and analytical reporting was vehemently echoed by delegates. Uganda’s representative, who spoke for the Group of 77 and China, said that due to the generality of the information provided, it was not able to evaluate the vendor diversity and geographical basis of the procurement. The current reporting lacks an adequate level of detail, data and analysis. Moreover, outreach to vendors in least developed and in-transition countries is lower than in industrialized nations. “While we will seek more information on the justifications, we reiterate the need for the Secretary-General to implement additional, innovative ways to promote and sustain procurement from these group of countries,” he said.
He also pointed to the role of the Global Procurement Support Section at the Regional Service Centre in Entebbe in servicing the procurement needs of the UN’s Africa offices, including peacekeeping and special political missions, and stressed that the Centre should be utilized to a larger magnitude — including as a “circular supply chain” in the return, refurbishment and reuse programme for closing and downsizing missions. Encouraging the Secretary-General to look into the overuse of informal methods of solicitation to identify risks of procurement misconduct, he called for targeted measures to meet the geographical aims provided under the senior managers compact with the Secretary-General.
The Russian Federation’s representative — speaking also for Kyrgyzstan, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan — said the report on supply chain management is descriptive in nature. “We trust that next time the Secretariat will prepare a more substantive and detailed document,” he said, stressing the need to improve the analytical component about planned and finished procurement work. Establishing measures to disclose information regarding the Secretariat’s acquisition of goods and services will help vendors better understand its logic and compete more actively. “The benefit is obvious — bidders would be able to compete more actively with each other, which would ultimately reduce the costs of goods and services purchased by the Secretariat,” he said.
Concerned about recommendation 6 in the OIOS report, he said: “The report of an external consultant cannot serve as a basis for increasing the share of tenders under the request for proposals.” Rather the Secretary-General must provide Member States with a comparative analysis of the advantages and disadvantages of the request-for-proposals and invitation-to-bid solicitation methods, he said, adding that it is premature to talk about increasing the use of request for proposals given the absence of a cost-benefit analysis of the different methodologies.
The Fifth Committee also heard from Fatoumata Ndiaye, Under-Secretary-General for Internal Oversight Services, who introduced the Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS) report concerning the audit of acquisition of aviation services in United Nations peace operations (document A/78/767). While the audit concluded that there were adequate processes in place for the Organization to communicate its needs and for Member States to respond, she said, the efficiency and effectiveness of other aspects of the management of acquisition of commercial and military aviation services can be further enhanced with more strategic and integrated planning.
Most of the solicitation exercises reviewed by the audit, she continued, attracted between four and six vendor responses, which was relatively low considering the value of the services being solicited. The OIOS made six recommendations to the Department of Operational Support and two recommendations to the Department of Peace Operations, she said, noting that “both departments accepted the recommendations and initiated actions to implement them”.