Uruguay's public procurement
Price flags
Contracts where the unit price departs sharply from what the state usually pays for the same item. A flag is not an accusation: it marks something worth a look.
How it is calculated
For each combination of item, currency and unit of measure, a price baseline is built from the last 36 months. Each award's unit price is then scored against that baseline using a robust measure in log space: it uses the median rather than the mean, so a huge contract cannot mask its own anomaly.
At least 10 comparable items are needed to score a price, and 30 to assign the highest severities.
There are legitimate explanations: urgent purchases, different specifications under the same catalogue code, or items misclassified at the source.
IPRATROPIO (INHALADOR) inhalador
Centro de Rehabilitación Médico Ocupacional y Sicosocial · PROMOTORA FARMACEUTICA SOCIEDAD DE RESPONSABILIDAD
No apparent explanationUnexplained55%
Se pagaron 235 UYU por inhalador de ipratropio, un 32% por encima del techo habitual (p95=177.96), sin que la marca, concentración o presentación declaradas (0.02 MG/DSP, 250 dosis) difieran de lo esperable para este código de catálogo.
Paid$ 235Usual range$ 143 – 178SELLO AUTOMATICO unidad
Centro de Rehabilitación Médico Ocupacional y Sicosocial · PAPELCUR SOCIEDAD ANONIMA
No apparent explanationUnexplained90%
El precio unitario del sello automático es significativamente superior al rango habitual sin justificación aparente en el contexto.
Paid$ 1.787Usual range$ 394 – 1.633