ABSTRACT
All economic activities undertaken by national, provincial or municipal governments—whether providing physical infrastructure, purchasing and maintaining defence equipment or providing public goods such as education and health care—require procuring intermediate goods and services. The procurement of goods and services by different tiers of government accounts for 10–20 per cent of GDP, a significant share of national public finance. Globally, non-defence-related procurement amounts to an estimated US$1.5 trillion (Hoekman, 1998). Among developing countries, procurement is estimated to account for 9–13 per cent of GDP (Choi, 1999). How procurement is undertaken is therefore crucial for the implementation of development policy.
