Reform of Procurement System in South Africa
Date: 2010-03-02
Africa - South Africa
During his first budget speech, Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan, indicated that reform of the procurement system is a priority for government in stamping out corruption in South Africa.
Here is part of the speech:
"A major site of both wastage and inefficiency is in our procurement system. Through a combination of corrupt practices, inefficient procurement, poor planning and, in some instances, collusion by the private sector, we are not getting the kind of value from our purchases that our people deserve. Even where there is absolutely no corruption, we sometimes give contracts to people who cannot implement them and so houses are left without roofs, roads crumble when it rains; water schemes break down and school books fail to get delivered.
Corruption is an ever-present threat to our ambitions. All South Africans must constantly and consciously work to root out this cancer. If we are to address this scourge, we need improved management capability, governance, enforcement, and oversight in government, and in the business sector. Poorly managed tender processes are all too often open to such abuse. Greater transparency and accountability in procurement systems will therefore be a key focus of reform in the period ahead.
Additional funds have been allocated to bolster efforts to strengthen supply chain management, and the relevant government departments have intensified efforts to bring perpetrators of tender fraud to book. Data matching, the practice of comparing, for example, taxpayer data with social grants registers or housing waiting lists, will become a regular feature of a systematic approach to minimise abuse. We are starting to see the early results of these efforts: officials have been disciplined and others fired, five people linked to supply chain fraud were arrested in KwaZulu-Natal last week and more cases have been handed over to the National Prosecuting Authority. We are expecting more arrests very soon. An inter-ministerial committee on corruption has been established, Chaired by Minister Chabane, to coordinate government's efforts to stamp out corruption".