Guatemala—Fiscal and Procurement Reform Project (FPRP)

The Government of Guatemala’s anemic ratio of tax revenue-to-gross domestic product means the country cannot afford to provide critical public services. The Fiscal and Procurement Reform Project (FPRP) supported the government to increase domestic resource mobilization, enhance transparency and accountability, and support public procurement reform.

Through FPRP, DAI worked with Guatemala’s Tax and Customs Administration and Ministry of Finance to collect and spend revenue with greater efficiency, effectiveness, and accountability, ultimately increase its ability to invest in public services and improve outcomes for citizens in health, education, and economic growth.

The project drew from similar fiscal reform successes by DAI on behalf the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) in El Salvador, Jordan, and the Philippines.

Sample Activities

• Support the Superintendencia de Administración Tributaria (Tax and Customs Administration) in optimizing business processes, modernizing systems, and strengthening newly created offices for taxpayer assistance, fiscal investigation, and personnel training.
• Redesign public procurement software systems to increase transparency, accountability, and efficiency.
• Increase the utilization of Guatemalan small and medium-sized businesses in government procurement. 
• Strengthen the Directorate for Public Procurement to serve as an oversight body.

Select Results

• Launched GUATECOMPRAS mobile app, an innovative technological solution accessible through mobile devices for public procurements in Guatemala. The app revolutionizes the direct purchase modality in public procurements less than $12,000 at all levels of government, allowing transactions to take place at minimum administrative costs, through a transactional and transparent process.
• Supported the Government of Guatemala launch of the General Registry of Government Providers (RGAE), which registers and pre-qualifies persons and firms, enabling them to participate in the provision of goods, services, and infrastructure to the government. The RGAE introduces international standards in legal and technical requirements improving private sector trust and reducing opportunities for corruption from fictitious persons and firms bidding for government contracts. The new pre-qualification requirements also allow for simple and transparent formulas that more effectively determine financial solvency which contributes to reduce breach of contracts and opportunities for bribes.