The Integrity Commission says competition has become the exception rather than the rule in government contracting.
That’s according to a special report tabled in the House of Representatives on Tuesday.
Mahiri Stewart tells us more.
The commission’s director of investigation, Kevon Stephenson, says 69.2 per cent of contracts awarded last year went to a single source, with no competing bids.
Only 4.1 per cent were awarded through open competitive bidding. This is despite the Public Procurement Act, which makes open competition the general rule.
The report examines 33,583 contracts worth $336.4 billion awarded in 2025. It also tracks the trend back to 2006.
Stephenson says single sourcing has accounted for about two-thirds of contracts every year since 2017. He says this is not because only one supplier was available.
Fewer than 8 per cent of single-source awards were for things like legal services or software licences, where there is often just one provider. Most were routine purchases.
The report flags awards that it says warrant examination.
Three thousand and fifty-two single-source contracts, worth $51.6 billion, were above the single-source limit. Above that limit, the law allows single sourcing only in limited circumstances.
On 416 occasions, a public body gave the same contractor several single-source contracts on the same day. Each was within the limit, but together they exceeded it.
The report says these may have legitimate explanations, but they may also point to contracts being split up to avoid competition, which the law prohibits. The director of investigation says he will examine them.
Emergency contracting rose 63 per cent to $16.3 billion. Of that, $10.5 billion was awarded in the last three months of the year, after Hurricane Melissa. That is the highest quarter on record.
The report also points to changes made to the procurement rules last year. After the single-source limits were raised, single sourcing of small works contracts jumped from 36 per cent to 83 per cent.
After the approval limits were doubled, 197 contracts worth $8.4 billion were awarded without the Public Procurement Commission endorsement they would previously have needed.
Contract value is also concentrated in very few hands. The largest 1 per cent of contractors received just over 70 per cent of the money awarded.
Among its recommendations, the report asks Parliament to consider requiring by law a review of emergency spending after every declared disaster.
It also proposes that public bodies be required to record their legal justification for every large single-source award and that the effect of the 2025 threshold changes be evaluated.
The commission’s separate monitoring of Hurricane Melissa contracts is ongoing and will be reported to Parliament later.
