Summary
Alberta Infrastructure’s procurement processes are guided by the Government of Alberta’s Procurement Accountability Framework (PAF) which is based on the principles of fairness, transparency, and integrity.
Objective and Scope
Our audit objective was to assess whether Alberta Infrastructure has effective processes to ensure fair and competitive procurement of its construction tenders. Our audit focused on the solicitation stage through to the contract award stage and included contracts that Alberta Infrastructure ultimately awarded to the proponent with the lowest priced compliant bid, using either a one-stage or two-stage method. We focused on contracts awarded based on lowest price because the magnitude of the contract spend is significant. These contracts also have increased risk for ensuring a fair procurement process, such as protecting confidentiality of bid prices before the procurement closes.
Conclusion
Based on our audit criteria, we conclude that Alberta Infrastructure has processes to ensure fair and competitive procurement of its construction tenders but not all of these processes are effective, and improvements can be made.