Changes in government procurement: COVID-19 as an opportunity for corruption

Purpose - Explore the factors making emergency procurement more prone to corruption by advancing explanations for when rules and transparency are relaxed allowing corrupt practices to emerge. Describe institutional factors, such as corruption syndrome (Johnston, 2005, 2015) and legal system, and their impact on procurement rules changes. Design/methodology/approach - A qualitative event study using publicly available data offer a timeline and explanation of government procurement control mechanisms and transparency roles in emergencies by comparing two countries. Argentina and Canada had very similar and advanced food procurement systems prior to COVID-19, but they took different stances when the pandemic broke out. Findings - Legal systems and corruption syndrome are linked, where Civil Law is related to Elite Cartels (Argentina) and Common Law with Influence Markets (Canada). The study contributes to understand the role of transparency to minimize the opportunity for direct purchases (electronic trails of decisions, justifications and approvals). Judicial system's actions favor corrupt practices and are aligned with elites despite the civil society outcry. Research limitations/implications - Research on corrupt practices has limited access to primary data due to fear of reprisals. Informal conversations revealing glimpses of corruption were used to identify publicly available documents. Numbers play a role in emergencies and performativity theory literature is enriched by providing an example of different interpretation of information when frameworks differ between civil society and courts. Originality/value - A comparative analysis that evidences the role of pre-existing institutional and social conditions shows when emergency situations will be used as an excuse to relax procurement control and transparency mechanisms which in turn facilitate corrupt practices.