Boureima Amadou
A question three years in the making: did Niger’s competitive dialogue ever stand a chance?
When Decree No. 2022-743/PRN/PM was unveiled on 29 September 2022, it was presented as a turning point for public procurement in Niger. By introducing the competitive dialogue procedure, the authorities pledged to streamline public spending, strengthen transparency, and give the state access to the technical expertise needed for major development projects.
Three years on, the verdict is stark: the reform has amounted to little more than a communications exercise, an illusion of modernisation that has produced no tangible results for Niger’s economy.
A sophisticated procedure that never left the page
The logic behind competitive dialogue was appealing: allow public buyers to engage with several shortlisted candidates in order to jointly design the most suitable technical, legal or financial solutions. But in the day-to-day operations of Niger’s public administrations, this provision has remained a dead letter.
- No technical ownership: without adequate training and clear methodological guides for procurement officers, the mechanism is seen as too complex and cumbersome to handle.
- A retreat into habit: contracting authorities continue to favour traditional methods or, more troublingly, to rely excessively on derogatory procedures without delivering the added value promised by the 2022 text.
- No major project delivered: in three years, the large infrastructure contracts that were supposed to benefit from this competitive flexibility have generated no visible knock-on effects and no measurable efficiency gains for the public treasury.
From the rhetoric of refoundation to the reality of direct deals
While the language of “refoundation” and managerial rigour is on every official’s lips, the persistence of direct award practices and negotiated deals contradicts the intentions set out in the 2022 decree.
Rather than fostering a climate of healthy competition and transparency, the revamped legal framework often serves as an administrative shopfront to reassure observers, while conditions on the ground remain marked by opacity and a lack of accountability. Local businesses, which were meant to be the first beneficiaries of a more open dialogue with the state, continue to complain about restricted access to major opportunities and the slow pace of procedures.
The record of a legal framework that does not work
After three years of theoretical application, the scorecard for the 29 September 2022 decree highlights the gulf between legislative inflation and operational reality:
- No impact on cost reduction: the financial optimisation expected from stronger competition has not materialised in public accounts.
- Transparency as an illusion: audits and evaluation reports on the actual use of competitive dialogue remain virtually non-existent.
- A brake on investment: the gap between the texts on paper and their real-world application fosters uncertainty for serious economic partners.
Decree No. 2022-743 has been little more than a legal veneer with no knock-on effect. Tested by time, the introduction of competitive dialogue looks more like a communications manoeuvre than a genuine lever for transforming public procurement in Niger.
