Cape Town - Officials of the provincial treasury have been told their procurement disclosure reports (PDR) have a tendency to be “highly technical” and not easy to understand for the layperson.
Members of the legislature’s standing committee on finance, economic opportunity and tourism made the comments during a briefing by the provincial treasury on its PDR as well as on the department’s work to support the conditional grants transferred to local municipalities.
Committee member Andricus van der Westhuizen (DA) said: “I am not sure I was completely able to understand everything that you shared with us. For example, the whole issue of benchmarking and the effect that that has had on the prices of items that were procured.”
Committee member Nomi Nkondlo (ANC) said: “While the highly technical language of the reports is all very well for those who deal with such topics every day, translating such information to a layperson, so that we can all get to understand better, seems a bit of a challenge.”
During the briefing, the officials from the treasury said that, to date, the province had spent 67.3% of all Covid-19 expenditure on small, medium and micro enterprises (SMMEs) since the pandemic started in March 2020.
These SMMEs include businesses which are BBBEE compliant, local suppliers and businesses earning less than R10 million a year.
The provincial treasury’s 14th edition of their monthly PDR shows that to date R214 million has been committed towards Covid-19 related expenditure across departments and public entities in the 2021/22 financial year in the province.
Committee chairperson Deidré Baartman (DA) said: “My concern is that the procurement process has become so over-regulated through legislation adopted by the national treasury that departments and entities across the board find it challenging to comply with every regulation and still meet their mandate to provide excellent services to residents.
“A procurement system that cannot rapidly adapt to changes in society creates unnecessary obstacles. For this reason, we call on the national Treasury to accelerate its work on the Draft Public Procurement Bill which was published last year.”
She said the fact that more than 60% of all expenditure, or R1.2 billion, went to BBBEE businesses showcases the provincial government’s commitment to leveraging its work to support the local economy.