Policymakers: Case 2. % Real-Time Calculation of Budget Fund Utilization Through Government Procurement

Before we delve into the actual case, let’s formulate some key questions we might be interested in:

• What is the current status of the implementation of government procurement plans and budget fund utilization?
• What plans have yet to be implemented and what is their status?
• Can we forecast when the plan items will be closed?
• Is it possible to link spent funds (plan items) with expected outcomes via budget programs?

Let’s turn our attention to the “Overall Overview” tab. To obtain current data, you should select the 2023 fiscal year. 

Nearly all planned funds have been accounted for in executed contracts, which is to be expected given that almost half of the current fiscal year has passed.

In the “Agency Rankings,” we can note that the top agency by planned expenditure is the Department of Science and Higher Education with planned procurements amounting to 204 billion tenge, and contract amounts totaling 203 billion tenge.

Let’s switch to the “Plan Items Table” tab to break down these figures into specific plan items for this agency. The tab shows a list of plan items. We can understand their statuses through filters. Out of 198 plan items for the Department, 19 contracts have yet to be signed.

Sorting the plans by value, we see that two plan items with a total value of 500 million were carried out through open competition (often called “open tender” in U.S. Federal Procurement).

If the Agency issues procurement again, can we forecast the timeline for procurement procedures? Let’s open the “Procurement Stage” tab and look at the average duration of procurements by this agency under the open competition method. The average time from publication to contract signing for this agency has previously been 69 days, which can serve as a basis for forecasting.

The final question that interested us is whether we can draw a parallel between budget programs and actual procurements. On the “Open Budgets” portal, you can review the budget programs. Each program has associated expected outcomes from its implementation.

Each program has a designated administrator, and you can choose all procurements attributed to the respective administrator through the “Budget Program Administrator” field. Through links on the “Plan Items” tab, you can review the budget classifications related to the plans.