Integrating Responsible Business Conduct in Public Procurement

Chile

1. Policy

The Chilean Public Procurement Law № 19 886 and its Bylaws include the following RBC objectives:

Environment

Labour rights

People with disabilities

Integrity

Other policy frameworks

The Public Procurement Directive № 17 titled “Instructions for inclusive and proactive public procurement - equal opportunities in the public market” is a guidance document for public officers to conduct more inclusive procurement procedures which includes the following RBC objectives:

Minorities

People with disabilities

Long-term unemployed

Gender

Strategic frameworks

• National Plan for Business and Human Rights

• National Plan for Human Rights to guarantee the respect of human rights for all people living in Chile.

2. Implementation

Pre-tender phase

• ChileCompra, the Chilean CPB, considers all eight RBC objectives in the market analysis for framework agreements.

Tender phase

• When evaluating bids for recurrent services, procurement officers are expected to give additional evaluation points to suppliers who provide proof of improved labour conditions and salaries.

• Companies sentenced for bribery infractions are not allowed to be awarded National contracts. The Chilean government has a track list of those companies. This list is available for registered users in the e-procurement system Mercado Público.

Post-tender phase

• In accordance with the Chilean Labour Code, public entities must verify the suppliers’ performance related to labour obligations before partial payments.

• Public contracts may contain sanctions in case of violations to integrity standards.

3. Good Practices

• There are general guidelines to help public buyers include RBC objectives like energy efficiency, environmental issues (№ 25) and labour rights throughout the procurement cycle (№ 15).

• ChileCompra developed Ethics Codes for both for suppliers (2018) and public officers (2017). The Ethics Codes sets out obligations and ethical standards that suppliers must meet when selling their goods and services to the state, reflecting the best international practices.

• ChileCompra, through its Observatory Department, launched preventive and corrective monitoring campaigns of procurements targeted at the user level. Their main objective is to detect errors or omissions at an early stage, during the design of the specifications and in the execution of the tenders, to promote their correction.