Overview of contract splitting
Procurement fraud is the unlawful manipulation of the process of acquiring goods or services, to obtain an unfair advantage1. This type of fraud can occur at various stages of the procurement cycle, i.e., tendering, purchasing, contract execution and payment.
Contract splitting is one of the most common types of procurement fraud. It involves instances where a large contract or procurement is broken down into smaller segments to avoid triggering specific approval thresholds, that would require scrutiny by the Board and/or Senior Management.
By fragmenting the total value of a contract into smaller parts, the individuals responsible for procurement or project management can bypass higher-level approvals, which might have otherwise imposed more rigorous evaluation, resulted in competitive bidding, or additional oversight2.
Contract splitting is also referred to as ‘split purchase’, ‘split transaction’, ‘cost splitting’, ‘bid splitting’, ‘tender splitting’, among others.
1 Source - Certified Public Accountant (CPA) Handbook on Fraud
2 Source - Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE)
