Consulting firms: Anticor claims state transparency on nature of contracts

The anti-corruption association considers that the framework agreements used in the use of private consultants such as McKinsey are a source of unplanned expenditure.

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The controversy on consulting firms complicates the end of the campaign of Emmanuel Macron. And it has not finished poisoning the current executive. After the Senate, it is indeed the turn of the anti-corruption association to question the use of public funds during the past five years. According to the information of the world, anticor is preparing to publicly challenge the government, Friday, April 8, to claim a “total transparency” on framework agreements passed through the Interdepartmental Directorate of Public Transformation (DITP) to consulting firms and Other private providers, as well as on purchase orders and performance control methods.

The DITP is this public armed arm created by Emmanuel Macron in 2017 to initiate the reform of the state. At the same time master of the Transformation Program and the Public Purchase Central Program, it supervises a good part of the state-ordered missions to private council firms, under the authority of the Minister of the Minister. Transformation and public function, Amelie de Montchalin. It is therefore this direction that has been to the maneuver in the award of contracts with McKinsey and competing cabinets.

“Misuse manifest scheme”

From 2018 to 2021, contracts gone through private consultants totaled more than 2.4 billion euros according to the Senate. Part of these missions have been concluded through very large framework agreements of “intellectual benefits”, with purchase orders issued for each new mission, for the benefit of the firms retained, solicited in turn, according to a mechanism baptized “Turnstile”.

Or, for anticor, this type of contract – by which a public buyer (state, community, etc.) is committed to moving from markets on a predefined subject (eg health) and for a given period (often Multi-year), with one or more providers – deserves that we look closer. If it is one of the opportunities offered by the Public Order Code, to avoid multiplying tenders and simplify procedures, it de facto restricts the number of selected vendors and competitive. At the risk of redenetting the cost of benefits, with each new purchase order issued. In fact, the chosen providers fix prices without competing, and without negotiation.

Solicited on the undertaking approach by Anticor, his Chairperson, Elise Van Beneden, explains that “framework agreements can be useful”. But, she warns, “poorly controlled executive agreements, without competition at subsequent markets, become an uncontrolled source of expenditure”. “The revelations of the press and the Senate Commission of Inquiry show that these contracts promote the commitment of huge amounts. The government must make transparency, continues the president of anticor. We are here in a manifest scheme of mismanagement Public funds. “” This question must be examined, including in the perspective of possible criminal offenses, “says Van Beneden.

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/Media reports.