In an interview with BusinessWeek, the CEO of the one-year old regulator, Tumelo Motsumi said that the Authority is aware of concerns about poor delivery of projects by contractors as well as the swelling number of projects that cannot be completed due to litigation tussles by contractors.
“Contract management has been a big issue for us in the country but we have powers as the Authority through the Procurement act to deal with incompliant behaviour. “We have in the past de-registered companies due to incompliant behaviour and we will continue to do so,” she said.
Public procurement has been marred by complaints of corruption, collusion and a string of other malpractices such as price gouging for many years in the country. In some instances major entities have been accused of price manipulation in tendering in order to squeeze out small scale bidders.
Motsumi said that in light of these mounting pressures, the Authority is aware of its power to suspend and remove companies that act in defiance of the Procurement Act from its register.
“We carry out a series of compliance assessments and we analyse tender notices to ensure that what is procured is what is required to avoid issues of collusion and other tender malpractice issues,” she added.
The PPRA evolved from being the Public Procurement Asset Disposal Board (PPADB), forfeiting its previous role of assessing and awarding major public tenders. Since its establishment, the new authority is now a supervising entity as opposed to an awarding entity, something which Motsumi believes will give the parastatal more time to clean up procurement issues that have been plaguing the country.
The Mankgodi-Gabane road is an example of administrative conundrums facing the procurement landscape in the country after the P1.7 Billion project was cancelled, sent for re-tendering and now is at the courts, denying residents of the village the needed service.
With the Minister of Finance’s announcement of a significant increase in the developmental budget for the forthcoming year, the procurement authority has its hands full to ensure compliance.
The planned development budget for 2024-25 has been increased to P29.8 billion, from the P21 billion allocated last year.
