Parliament - Finance Minister Malusi Gigaba put his foot down on tender corruption and looting of state-owned companies.
Delivering his maiden Medium-Term Budget Policy Statement in Parliament , Gigaba said the fight against fraud, corruption and abuse of supply chain management system was being extended to cover both public and private sector corruption.
This includes restricting companies found to have contravened competition laws through collusive practices.
Gigaba said that government was working diligently on achieving efficiencies in supply chain management.
He said that since the introduction of expenditure ceilings and the implementation of specific cost containment measures in 2013, spending on consultants, travel, accommodation, catering, advertising and conferences had declined by R2 Billion.
"The Office of the Chief Procurement Officer has managed to expose corrupt activities in certain government institutions and state-owned enterprises through the review of contracts above R10 million," Gigaba said.
"The fight against corruption is being accelerated and National Treasury is currently working with law enforcement agencies to investigate contracts which are alleged to be irregularly procured in certain state-owned enterprises."
This comes as state-owned companies like Eskom and Transnet have been in the spotlight recently over allegations of their involvement in State capture in multi-billion rand coal contracts and procuring locomotives.
Gigaba said Office of the Chief Procurement Officer had strengthened the initiatives to modernise public procurement through the use of technology to automate procurement processes to simplify and reduce the costs of doing business with government.
He said that accounting officers and accounting authorities who fail to do comply with procurement regulations should be charged for financial misconduct.
"The payment of legitimate invoices to suppliers within the prescribed 30 days is critical for SMEs. Failure to do so is devastating for small businesses, and is a financial misconduct in terms of the PFMA and MFMA," Gigaba said.
"There must be consequence management in this regard. Further, performance agreements of accounting officers and accounting authorities must include timeous payment of suppliers as one of the key performance areas."