By: Staff Writer
August 25, Colombo (LNW): Sri Lanka’s latest procurement data points to a substantial improvement in the awarding of major government contracts. However, the improvement also places greater responsibility on the present government to ensure that increased spending does not create new opportunities for institutional corruption.
The Finance Ministry’s fifth procurement monitoring report covers contracts exceeding Rs 200 million awarded by ten institutions between 2022 and June 2026. These institutions were selected because they recorded the lowest levels of competitive tendering in 2022.
The latest figures show a clear change in procurement performance.
In the first half of 2026, institutions under the Transport, Highways, Ports and Civil Aviation Ministry awarded 73 contracts worth nearly Rs 150 billion. All 73 were competitively awarded, meaning none was a single-bid contract.
The improvement becomes more significant when compared with previous years. During 2022-2024, the Ceylon Petroleum Corporation successfully awarded only 38 per cent of its procurements above Rs 200 million. Forty-two per cent were cancelled and 19.5 per cent failed.
By 2025, the CPC’s successful award rate had risen to 90.67 per cent, with failures falling to zero. During the first half of 2026, the award rate remained high.
The water sector provides another major example of the change. Between 2022 and 2024, 76.6 per cent of its procurements 129 out of 168 were cancelled. Only 39 were successfully awarded. Cancellations subsequently fell to 5.56 per cent in 2025, while all 21 procurements reported in the first half of 2026 were successfully awarded.
Such figures suggest that procurement procedures are becoming more efficient and that institutions are overcoming some of the failures that delayed public projects in previous years.
But this improvement should not lead to complacency.
The principal concern is the amount of public money now moving through major procurement programmes. The Transport, Highways, Ports and Civil Aviation Ministry alone recorded nearly Rs 150 billion in awards during six months. Seventy of the 73 awards were listed under the highway section and Road Development Authority.
Large-scale infrastructure procurement requires particularly strong safeguards because decisions taken during tendering can have long-term financial consequences for the State.
The critical issue is therefore not simply whether a contract was competitively tendered. The government must also ensure that tender requirements do not unfairly favour particular bidders, evaluation procedures are properly documented and contract decisions can withstand independent scrutiny.
There should also be close monitoring after contracts are awarded. Significant changes to contract values, extensions, variations and repeated awards to the same companies should be examined carefully.
The present government has an opportunity to build on the improvement shown in the latest figures. Procurement transparency should become a permanent institutional practice rather than a requirement driven only by external commitments.
The objective should be straightforward: every major government contract must be demonstrably competitive, properly evaluated and economically justified.
The latest data shows that Sri Lanka can improve procurement performance. The next challenge is ensuring that greater efficiency is matched by equally strong accountability.