Treasury to introduce more procurement reforms

Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan delivers his budget speech in Parliament on February 24, 2016. File picture: Kopano Tlape

Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan delivers his budget speech in Parliament on February 24, 2016. File picture: Kopano Tlape

Published Oct 26, 2016

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Parliament - A new bill set to introduce procurement reforms in government is set to be tabled before Cabinet next year, Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan announced on Wednesday.

The Public Procurement bill will be considered by Cabinet before April, 2017, according to the medium-term budget policy statement, tabled by Gordhan in Parliament.

"The aim of the bill is to consolidate the legal and policy framework for supply chain management. It will establish an apex procurement authority as the guardian of section 217 of the Constitution, which requires public procurement to be fair, equitable, transparent, competitive and cost effective," according to the Treasury document.

"The bill will also empower the Chief Procurement Officer to conduct lifestyle audits and review transactions across the public sector."

The move, along with other procurement reforms, is aimed at reducing corruption and irregular expenditure estimated at tens of billions of rands. Government is also stepping up its plan to centralise procurement through transversal contracts, which Treasury believes will limit corruption and ensure more value for money.

"These contracts allow multiple organs of state to buy goods and services at competitive pre-negotiated prices, reducing costs and administrative requirements. There are now 50 such contracts covering 23,000 items with an estimated value of R37 billion," said Treasury.

"The contracts currently being negotiated will cover goods and services such as property and leasing, health technology, medical devices and pharmaceuticals, banking services, information and communication technology, and vehicles."

Treasury plans to modernise procurement systems over the next year as manual processes are cumbersome and slow.

African News Agency

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