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Only one tenderer submitted a bid in a competitive procurement procedure.

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Methodology

A contracting process is flagged if:
  • The number of tenderers (/tender/numberOfTenderers) is 1, AND
  • The procurement method is competitive (default: /tender/procurementMethod is ‘open’ or ‘selective’)
Example: The Ministry of Education publishes an open opportunity and receives a single bid. Despite being an open competition, no other suppliers participated.
Why is this a red flag?In a competitive procedure, a lack of competition might correspond to a suppression of competition and can represent the ideal outcome for a corrupt buyer and pre-determined bidder. The corrupt buyer may have designed specifications to favor a single supplier, or discouraged other bidders through informal channels.

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Output

The indicator’s value is always 1.0 when a contracting process is flagged.

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Configuration

All configuration is optional.
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procurement_methods
string
default:"open|selective"
Override the default competitive procurement methods. Provide as a pipe-separated list.
[R018]
procurement_methods = open|selective

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Example Output

Input (OCDS JSONL): 
{"ocid": "ocds-213czf-000-00001", "tender": {"procurementMethod": "open", "numberOfTenderers": 1}}
Command: 
ocdscardinal indicators --settings settings.ini --no-meta data.jsonl
Output: 
{"OCID":{"ocds-213czf-000-00001":{"R018":1.0}}}

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Implementation Details

From src/indicators/r018.rs:24-32: The indicator:
  1. Checks if the procurement method matches the configured competitive methods
  2. Retrieves the numberOfTenderers field from the tender
  3. Flags the process if the value equals exactly 1
  4. Uses a simple boolean check - no complex calculations needed
This indicator relies on accurate reporting of numberOfTenderers in the OCDS data. If this field is not populated, the indicator will not flag any processes.

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