Own investigation · data, not an accusation
In 852 of the 4,372 competitive purchases we could inspect, exactly one company bid. In another 24, two of the companies bidding against each other share a phone number or the address they filed with the State.
Awarded in purchases with a single bidder
$ 2.304.449.015excluding one $677M outlier record explained below
What we looked at
The open-data feed publishes who WON each purchase, never who competed. That makes the number-one procurement red flag — a competitive tender receiving a single offer — impossible to measure here: the OCDS bidder fields are empty on 100% of records.
The HTML page for each purchase does publish it, in a block called "Proveedores participantes" listing names and tax IDs. We are scraping it in batches. As of 13 August 2026 we have inspected 5,298 purchases, of which 4,372 published the block, across 206 public bodies.
That allows two questions nobody could ask before: how many competitive tenders drew a single offer, and whether the firms bidding against each other are actually independent.
The context
Of the eight risk indicators the GI-ACE project uses to track corruption in public procurement, the first is also the simplest: how many tenders receive a single offer. Studying World Bank-financed projects between 1993 and 2007, that team measured that when average single bidding rises from nil to 19%, the likelihood of a considerable cost overrun — 20% or more — increases by nine percentage points, from 16% to 25%.
The OECD adds the caveat that always belongs: a single bid can reflect a small market, an over-specific tender document, distance, or simply that nobody heard about it — but it can also indicate favouritism or a breach of competition rules. It is a reason to ask, not a conclusion.
Here the measured level is 19.5%. It is not comparable to the European average or to that study — our sample is small and spans two years — but it is the first number of its kind that can be computed on Uruguayan procurement.
In late 2021 the state telecom company ANTEL awarded seven tenders to install fibre optic networks around the country. The Court of Auditors referred those seven files to the Competition Commission to assess whether prohibited practices had occurred. According to Brecha, the firms involved include Saceem, Stiler, Ciemsa, CEI, Gofinal, Montelecnor, Electrosistemas, SIE and Oritecno, and what drew attention was that companies competing in one tender appeared as consortium partners in another. Separately, an ANTEL director raised alleged cost overruns of about ten million dollars attributed to a change in the award mechanism.
The caveat goes in whole, not trimmed: referring a file is not a conviction, we have no record of any sanction, and we could not read the Court's document — our resolutions collection is empty — so the above rests on the press cited below. We report it because one of the companies appearing further down in this piece, Electrosistemas S.A., is on that list. Its name appearing in both places says nothing about the 2025 tenders we measured here: it says an oversight body has already asked the question.
Law 18,159, article 4 BIS, item 4 — added by Law 19,833 of 2019. It is investigated by the Competition Commission, on its own initiative or on a complaint; fines range from 10,000 to 20,000,000 Indexed Units, or 10% of the offender's annual revenue, or three times the harm caused.
Finding 1
We cross-referenced each tender's bidders against the address every firm files in the state supplier registry (RUPE) and the phone numbers they publish. Eight pairs bid on the same tender while sharing one of the two. That is not illegal and they may belong to one corporate group: what changes is that the tender had fewer independent bidders than its list suggests.
8 pairs · 24 tenders · 6 awarded to both
The most frequent case: DECOSTAR S.A. and FULLSYSTEM S.R.L. file the same address (Aramburu Domingo 1634) — the only two firms in the corpus that file it — and the same phone. They bid together on seven tenders, including one from the National Casinos Directorate and one from the Judiciary. In three, the purchase was awarded to both.
| Sole bidder | Link | Tenders together | Awarded to both | Awarded |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Decostar S A + Fullsystem S R L | same registry addresssame phoneAramburu Domingo 1634 C.p. 11800 — filed by 2 firms | 7 | 3 | $ 7 M |
| Sevitec Ltda + Convi Sociedad Anonima | same phonetel. 24024944 — filed by 2 firms | 7 | 0 | $ 40,6 M |
| Gonzalez Moura S R L + Grupo OD S A S | same registry addressDE LA Rosa, Agustin 609 — filed by 2 firms | 2 | 0 | $ 1,9 M |
| Rutas Del Sol Ltda + Cromin S A | same phonetel. 25066060 — filed by 2 firms | 2 | 1 | $ 11,7 M |
| Electrosistemas S.a + Union Electrica S.a. | same phonetel. 26138514 — filed by 3 firms | 2 | 0 | $ 56,3 M |
| Chadre S A + Agencia Central S A | same registry addressBatlle Y Ordoñez Bvar. Jose 3266 — filed by 4 firms | 2 | 2 | $ 3,7 M |
| Mercoluz S A + Fescomel S.a. | same phonetel. 22000643 — filed by 3 firms | 1 | 0 | $ 262.232 |
| LA Flotta Limitada + Decatur S R L | same phonetel. 46422571 — filed by 2 firms | 1 | 0 | $ 256.906 |
| Purchase | Buyer | Sole bidder | Bidders | Awarded | Won |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1306554 → | Administración Nacional de Usinas y Trasmisiones Eléctricas | Electrosistemas S.a + Union Electrica S.a. | 7 | $ 37,5 M | neither |
| 1283843 → | Fiscalia General de la Nación | Sevitec Ltda + Convi Sociedad Anonima | 5 | $ 26,1 M | neither |
| 1306869 → | Administración Nacional de Usinas y Trasmisiones Eléctricas | Electrosistemas S.a + Union Electrica S.a. | 10 | $ 18,8 M | neither |
| 1282143 → | Congreso de Intendentes | Sevitec Ltda + Convi Sociedad Anonima | 9 | $ 8,9 M | one of the two |
| 1290191 → | Direc. General de Secretaría. | Rutas Del Sol Ltda + Cromin S A | 5 | $ 6,4 M | both |
| 1324091 → | Dirección de Educación | Rutas Del Sol Ltda + Cromin S A | 7 | $ 5,3 M | one of the two |
| 1309922 → | Instituto de Investigaciones Biológicas Clemente Estable | Sevitec Ltda + Convi Sociedad Anonima | 8 | $ 3,3 M | neither |
| 1309916 → | Comando General del Ejército | Chadre S A + Agencia Central S A | 8 | $ 3,1 M | both |
| 1275681 → | Dirección General de Secretaría | Decostar S A + Fullsystem S R L | 14 | $ 2,6 M | neither |
| 1270831 → | Dirección General de Casinos | Decostar S A + Fullsystem S R L | 8 | $ 1,9 M | both |
| 1321945 → | Dirección Nacional de Vialidad | Sevitec Ltda + Convi Sociedad Anonima | 4 | $ 1,1 M | one of the two |
| 1340352 → | Banco de Previsión Social | Gonzalez Moura S R L + Grupo OD S A S | 6 | $ 960.000 | neither |
| 1295633 → | Dirección Nacional de Aduanas | Gonzalez Moura S R L + Grupo OD S A S | 3 | $ 892.000 | one of the two |
| 1295317 → | Dirección Nacional de Arquitectura | Sevitec Ltda + Convi Sociedad Anonima | 4 | $ 722.200 | neither |
| 1306231 → | Facultad de Arquitectura, Diseño y Urbanismo | Decostar S A + Fullsystem S R L | 16 | $ 712.629 | neither |
| 1322356 → | Poder Judicial | Decostar S A + Fullsystem S R L | 7 | $ 695.662 | both |
| 1340658 → | Comando General de la Armada | Chadre S A + Agencia Central S A | 5 | $ 522.351 | both |
| 1296007 → | Contaduría General de la Nación | Decostar S A + Fullsystem S R L | 8 | $ 518.386 | both |
| 1295327 → | Dirección Nacional de Arquitectura | Sevitec Ltda + Convi Sociedad Anonima | 6 | $ 469.000 | neither |
| 1297257 → | Centro Departamental de Lavalleja | Decostar S A + Fullsystem S R L | 20 | $ 318.770 | neither |
| 1289266 → | Junta Nacional de Salud | Decostar S A + Fullsystem S R L | 10 | $ 265.115 | neither |
| 1292603 → | Administración Nacional de Usinas y Trasmisiones Eléctricas | Mercoluz S A + Fescomel S.a. | 6 | $ 262.232 | one of the two |
| 1324105 → | Universidad Tecnológica del Uruguay | LA Flotta Limitada + Decatur S R L | 6 | $ 256.906 | one of the two |
| 1292936 → | Consejo de Educación Secundaria | Sevitec Ltda + Convi Sociedad Anonima | 6 | $ 800 | neither |
Verification
A link is not worth the same when the company declares it as when a scraper inferred it. We checked every pair against sources outside this database — almost always each firm's own website — and they are ordered here by how strong that evidence is.
Checked against:Electrosistemas S.A. — ContactoUnión Eléctrica S.A. (UESA)
Checked against:Electro Palace - Mercoluz S.A.Fescomel S.A.
Checked against:Decostar S.A.FullSystem S.R.L.
Checked against:Rutas del Sol
Checked against:Sevitec Ltda.
Grade C pairs are published anyway, labelled for what they are: if the Google listing is wrong, the link falls. We would rather show them labelled than hide them or treat them as settled.
Finding 1 · second layer
Bidding on the same tender is a snapshot. The other question is what happens the rest of the year: all eight pairs bill at least one public body in common. Below, what each firm was awarded since 2020 at the body where they overlap most.
The largest case is the state power utility: ELECTROSISTEMAS S.A. and UNION ELECTRICA S.A. — which file the same phone number — split 625 million pesos from the same buyer, almost evenly (309 million across 15 awards and 316 across 19). In the two tenders where they bid together, neither won.
| Firms | Bodies both bill | Biggest overlap | Awarded there (2020→) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Electrosistemas S.a + Union Electrica S.a. | 9 | Administración Nacional de Usinas y Trasmisiones Eléctricas $ 309.261.666 / 15 · $ 315.831.335 / 19 | $ 625 M |
| Sevitec Ltda + Convi Sociedad Anonima | 16 | Dirección General de Casinos $ 266.907.112 / 16 · $ 20.628.925 / 3 | $ 288 M |
| Decostar S A + Fullsystem S R L | 13 | Banco de la República del Uruguay $ 10.731.770 / 48 · $ 332.559 / 6 | $ 11,1 M |
| Mercoluz S A + Fescomel S.a. | 12 | Intendencia de Montevideo $ 10.884.091 / 696 · $ 980 / 1 | $ 10,9 M |
| Rutas Del Sol Ltda + Cromin S A | 1 | Red de Atención Primaria de Rocha $ 10.174.850 / 108 · $ 438.135 / 34 | $ 10,6 M |
| Chadre S A + Agencia Central S A | 4 | Red de Atención Primaria de Salto $ 2.995.998 / 59 · $ 3.684.463 / 59 | $ 6,7 M |
| Gonzalez Moura S R L + Grupo OD S A S | 2 | Dirección Nacional de Aduanas $ 6.291.033 / 12 · $ 200.655 / 1 | $ 6,5 M |
| LA Flotta Limitada + Decatur S R L | 9 | Dirección de Educación $ 1.318.601 / 2 · $ 112.727 / 2 | $ 1,4 M |
A corporate group selling through two companies is legal and common. What this cross-reference adds is where the money comes from: one buyer, two doors.
Finding 2
Direct purchase needs no competition — that is the point of it. These three procedures do. In all three, roughly one in five inspected purchases drew a single offer.
| Procedure | Inspected | Single offer | Share | Awarded |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Concurso de Precios | 2,781 | 522 | 18.8 % | $ 396 M |
| Licitación Abreviada | 1,489 | 323 | 21.7 % | $ 2,51 mil M |
| Licitación Pública | 102 | 7 | 6.9 % | $ 79,6 M |
A single-offer tender is not irregular in itself — the specification may describe something only one company sells. It is the signal every procurement watchdog looks at first, and until now it could not be looked at in Uruguay.
| Purchase | Buyer | Sole bidder | Procedure | Awarded |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1335874 → | Administración Nacional de Combustible, Alcohol y Portland | Mooringmen Srl | Licitación Abreviada | $ 68,2 M |
| 1311633 → | Administración Nacional de Telecomunicaciones | Electrosistemas S.a | Licitación Abreviada | $ 53,2 M |
| 1312719 → | Administración Nacional de Combustible, Alcohol y Portland | Gxc Sociedad Anonima | Licitación Abreviada | $ 53 M |
| 1298159 → | Administración Nacional de Telecomunicaciones | Convi Sociedad Anonima | Licitación Abreviada | $ 52,3 M |
| 1325724 → | Administración Nacional de Telecomunicaciones | Abacus S A | Licitación Abreviada | $ 50,3 M |
| 1339635 → | Administración Nacional de Combustible, Alcohol y Portland | Arkanosoft SA | Licitación Abreviada | $ 50 M |
| 1281748 → | Administración Nacional de Usinas y Trasmisiones Eléctricas | Tilsor S A | Licitación Abreviada | $ 46,1 M |
| 1349748 → | Administración Nacional de Telecomunicaciones | Tilsor S A | Licitación Abreviada | $ 42,9 M |
| 1281050 → | Administración de las Obras Sanitarias del Estado | Ancasud Sociedad Anonima | Licitación Abreviada | $ 41,7 M |
| 1324845 → | Administración Nacional de Telecomunicaciones | Claramunt Osores Elena Beatriz | Licitación Abreviada | $ 41 M |
| 1342960 → | Administración Nacional de Telecomunicaciones | Teyma Uruguay S A | Licitación Abreviada | $ 40,9 M |
| 1292974 → | Administración Nacional de Combustible, Alcohol y Portland | Logicalis Uruguay S.a. | Licitación Abreviada | $ 39,1 M |
| 1335733 → | Banco de Previsión Social | Xilophon S.a. | Licitación Abreviada | $ 31,2 M |
| 1284255 → | Banco de Previsión Social | Arnaldo C Castro S A | Licitación Abreviada | $ 29,3 M |
| 1298380 → | Administración Nacional de Usinas y Trasmisiones Eléctricas | Consorcio Fepremi II | Licitación Abreviada | $ 26 M |
What cannot be measured
Montevideo's city government came first at 93.8% single bidding. We are not publishing that, and it is worth explaining why: across its 65 inspected purchases the "participants" list matches the awarded-supplier list exactly, all 65 times. It never published anyone who lost.
We checked it against the official page of one of its purchases with three participants: all three were awarded, one item each, and the page does not state how many offers were received. That body publishes winners, not offers. Reading that silence as "only one company bid" would have manufactured the headline.
The guard now lives in the code: a body that has never published a losing bidder is flagged as unmeasurable, which is not the same as clean. Maldonado, by contrast, does show losers in 6 of its 7 non-single tenders, so its 84% measures something real.
| Public body | Inspected | With 2+ bidders | Published a loser | Measurable |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Intendencia de Montevideo | 65 | 4 | 0 | No |
| Intendencia de Maldonado | 45 | 7 | 6 | Yes |
| Administración Nacional de Telecomunicaciones | 66 | 30 | 18 | Yes |
| Banco de Previsión Social | 1,021 | 785 | 742 | Yes |
| Dirección Nacional de Sanidad Policial | 195 | 164 | 159 | Yes |
| Administración de las Obras Sanitarias del Estado | 250 | 158 | 157 | Yes |
The most expensive single-bidder purchase in the list is a UTE cleaning contract recorded as 1,475,400 units at $459: $677 million. It has the exact shape of the data-entry error this site already documents (a quantity multiplying a unit price into an impossible total). We neither correct it ourselves nor count it in the total: it is listed separately, with its link, for whoever can fix it.
1339091 → · Administración Nacional de Usinas y Trasmisiones Eléctricas · 1,475,400 × $ 459 = $ 677.208.600
We publish what is in the open data. What isn't — the file, the message, what was said in the meeting — goes to Uruguay Leaks, the anonymous inbox run by la diaria, PODER and DATA Uruguay. The message is written for you: copy it, add what you know and paste it into their form.
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How to check it
Every purchase links to its official page, where the "Proveedores participantes" block sits halfway down. Addresses come from RUPE, which is public. What the companies say about themselves is linked above, firm by firm. And the full method — including the filters that discarded 84 of the initial 92 pairs — is documented in the data module.
This is an analysis of public procurement data, which is public record. It documents verifiable facts — amounts, dates, suppliers, procurement method — and flags patterns worth scrutiny, keeping proven facts apart from open questions.
An exception purchase, a high price or supplier concentration is not, on its own, proof of wrongdoing. Many contracts may have valid administrative justification. The goal is to enable citizen oversight, not to issue a verdict.
Companies and people are named only as state suppliers, as they appear in the official system. Anyone named may add their response or correct a figure, and it will be incorporated.