Para 1.8.5 — GOODS_MANUAL

1.8.5 Public Accountability Principle: 1. Procuring authorities are accountable for all the above principles to several statutory and official bodies in the Country – the Legislature and its Committees, Central Vigilance Commission, Comptroller and Auditor General of India, Central Bureau of Investigations and so on– in addition to administrative accountability. As a result, each individual public procurement transaction is liable to be scrutinised independently and in isolation, besides judging the overall outcomes of the procurement process over a period. Procuring authorities thus have responsibility and accountability for compliance with rules and procedures in each individual procurement transaction, as well as the achievement of overall procurement outcomes.

1.9. Standards (Canons) of Financial Propriety Public Procurement, like any other expenditure in Government, must conform to the Standards (also called Canons) of Financial Propriety. It may be useful to refer to the relevant provisions in the General Financial Rules, 2017:

2. The procuring authority, at each stage of Procurement, must, therefore, place on record, in precise terms, the considerations that weighed with it while making the procurement decision from need assessment to fulfilment of need (Rule 144 (viii), GFR 2017). 3. Such records must be preserved, retained in easily retrievable form, and made available to such oversight agencies on demand. The procuring entity shall, therefore, maintain and retain audit trails, records and documents generated or received during its procurement proceedings in chronological order (refer to para 7.7.6 below). The files shall be stored in an identified place and retrievable for scrutiny whenever needed without wasting time.