There is very little concurrent audit, although that is beginning to change. In my opinion the weakest link here is the lack of capacity of the executing entities, and therefore I think we need to concentrate our efforts on increasing the ability of the ministry of public works, of health, or of education to do things properly. And then we can audit them. Many people think this kind of corruption happens because too much discretion is given to the central government. It depends on what you are decentralizing.
Most countries decentralize political power and money.
They don t decentralize procedures and controls. On the contrary, you might have atomized the process and therefore end up paying more because you have less volume, and you ve probably increased the opportunities for mismanagement and fraud. The challenge for us is to empower people to do things right. There s no point in decentralizing purchasing capacity to a municipality if you don t empower that municipality with the money, the human resources, and the training that s required to do it properly. Otherwise, you re going to end up sending in your auditor and he ll probably find that the decentralization process only resulted in their paying higher prices for your products.