[jq-r]

Yeah, I'm not sure if it prevents corruption at all. In my country public tenders are just another word for corruption.

A real example: police force wanted to get say 1000 new squad cars. One of the points in the tender was that the car's trunk has to be exactly that many litres (say 307L, don't remember the exact number). So of course, only one model of all the cars from all manufacturers had that value, and of course the only dealer who submitted for that tender won it. So it was blatantly obvious that the process was rotten from the start. But it was legal. And they (government)did it many times. And pretty much they are doing it for the last 20 years or so. So corruption is not something which you can solve easily, you need a lot of checks and balances to make it work.

[crazygringo]

You're right in that it absolutely requires either a watchdog agency to ensure tenders are written in a neutral way before being issued, and/or a court system where losing bidders are able to successfully sue as soon as they're issued, on the grounds of the tender not being neutral.

In one country where I previously lived, there was also an "escape clause" where if there was emergency time pressure, you could circumvent the process -- so guess what? The government would "invent delays" in writing up the specifications until the last possible minute, then award the contract without a public tender because there was no time left for the tender process!

So yes, the process absolutely has to be designed with some form of oversight and without loopholes, in order to achieve the aim of preventing corruption.