| Work Detail |
flouting of procedure appears to be the order of the day in the government tendering space as the Swaziland Public Procurement Regulatory Agency (SPPRA) says government ministries, municipalities and parastatals barely adhere to stipulated procurement procedures as only three out of 92 entities conform to the set standards. The agency’s Director Monitoring and Oversight Sibusiso Sibandze acknowledged that SPPRA currently grapples with a lot of issues emanating from the lack of proper systems to properly monitor tendering processes in government. He also did not hide the fact that most procuring entities are not forthcoming with information on their procurement activities, which makes things even tougher for the agency. SPPRA is a parastatal mandated to regulate all public procurement activities in Swaziland. The agency was established after it became pretty obvious that the public procurement space was riddled with a lot of issues. Despite the majority of government ministries, municipalities and parastatals clearly giving SPPRA a tough time, Sibandze showered the Swaziland Revenue Authority with praise and described this parastatal as being a shining case of cooperation as this entity is always forthcoming with documentation and information concerning their procurement activities. Sibandze lamented SPPRA’s lack of proper monitoring systems to observe the tightly contested world of procurement. Decried He also decried the agency’s limited budgetary support which makes it difficult to effectively implement their mandate. “Systems are important because we may pick one or two cases when in fact there are many cases. The problem with corruption is that it is normally the small fish which fry,” he said. He registered SPPRA’s ambition to design and put in place systems which pick every detail that has to do with public procurement including intentions to award tenders, monitoring the actual day-to-day operations of procuring entities such as the adverts issued to announce tenders, etc. SPPRA is mandated to assess public procurement in Swaziland and advise government on improvement measures. “We do not want the same mistakes to be repeated. One of our mandates is to collect data and also do a trend analysis to establish how much is being spent each year on certain supplies and comparing this data with other years,” he said, adding that to do all this, SPPRA needs proper systems to be in place. He also said the trend analysis would help allay instances where government buys goods at highly inflated prices. Meanwhile, SPPRA’s Senior Monitoring and Oversight Officer Bhekisisa Nkambule emphasised on the agency’s monitoring and oversight mandate to ensure that procurement activities comply with the Procurement Act. “We also want to make sure that the public is aware of all procurement activities,” he said. Some of the functions of procuring entities according to the Procurement Act of 2011 include the following: Preparing an annual procurement plan and providing information on forecast procurement requirements to the technical secretariat; initiating procurement requirements and obtaining all necessary authorisations for commitment of funds; providing procurement reports as may be required and managing contracts, including supplier performance. |
