Govt. in procurement transition mess

Government procurement is in disarray while public service delivery risks grinding to a halt following the scrapping of both the Public Procurement and Asset Disposal ( PPADB) and its attendant Ministerial Tender Committees ( MTCs) on the 14th of April 2022.

The announcements were made by Finance Minister, Peggy Serame. In their place the new Public Procurement Act 2021 came into effect on the 14th of April 2022, to streamline procurement.

There has however been chaos in most ministries as procurement has technically crashed with procuring departments having no knowledge and communication of the new procedures to be used.

As a result, the rate of public service delivery is on a downward spiral due to a lack of resources. Oddly, despite repealing the Public Procurement and Asset Disposal Act, some ministries continue to float tenders under the repealed Act.

No communication has been made on the new processes and procedures both to the purchasing departments and the general public, save for a properly planned transition phase.

The pre- commencement processes of tenders involved vetting of tenders by District Administration Tender Committees, Ministerial Tender Committees, and PPADB who would also receive the bids. The purchasing departments would conduct the evaluation and submit it to the committees for the award.

With the new procurement law, the accounting officer being the Permanent Secretary shall be responsible for the entire procurement process. It is feared that considering the amount of workload already on the desks of accounting officers, procurement will be slowed down instead of streamlined.

The accounting officer shall work on the basis of the recommendations of the Procurement Oversight Units.

The recent announcement of transfers, appointments, and redeployment of Permanent Secretaries following the rationalisation of ministries is said to not have helped the situation.

The transition has been exacerbated by the lack of Procurement Oversight Units in most ministries. The government has appointed Buyers, who shall lead the Procurement Oversight Units.

But the appointment of other members of the oversight units has not been done, thereby paralysing the entire transition. Information passed to this publication is that even the Directorate of Public Service Management ( DPSM) has also not approved the formal structures of the Procurement Oversight Units.

The Procurement Act has made it clear the Procurement Oversight Unit shall comprise professionals that possess skills, knowledge, and experience in procurement, which may include technical skills; procurement and or contracting skills; Accounting, financial management, or analytical skills, and legal expertise.

A source revealed to this publication that “most of the Buyers appointed in the ministries are not experienced enough to lead procurement at such large scales and will deteriorate the procurement efficiency”.

The source added that “there is a lack of procurement expertise across government departments, decentralising procurement will only lead to more corruption, flouting of procedures, more litigations and consequently loss of public funds”.

The source adds that in order to bring efficiency and curb corruption in public procurement, procurement should be decentralised as much as possible so that government can train a few people and train them well.

Sources from the government enclave have indicated that training hundreds of procurement officers across the public service is not practical and will never work. Skilled and experienced procurement staff is key to the implementation of the new procurement laws.

“Most SMEs and to some extent even the large enterprises depend on the government for business. With such extensive changes coming into play, enough public engagement should have been conducted before the commencement of the Act.

“We hear things are going to change completely but the government has not bothered to engage us so that we are prepared,” revealed a source from Business Botswana close to the developments.

Public Relations and Education Manager at PPADB which is now an Authority, Charles Keikotlhae could not respond to a questionnaire sent to him, indicating that all inquiries are now handled by the ministry.

In another twist, PPA ( formerly PPADB) is being accused of intentionally delaying and frustrating the transition by not giving mandates of acting on pending appeals and tenders to the Accounting Officers. MTC’s and DATC’s have been dissolved by the repealing of the PPADB Act but Accounting Officers have not yet been given the go- ahead to resolve the issues on the table. The source added that “there are hundreds of tenders and appeals across the ministries but Buyers haven’t been given the go ahead to act on them by PPA. There seems to be a power struggle going on and PPA is frustrating the process intentionally because the power to award tenders has been taken away from them and their committees”.

The positives from the new Act seem to be that there will be accountability in procurement as Permanent Secretaries in each ministry will be able to control and audit procurement easily as compared to procurement being split into various departments and places.

The Ministry of Finance had not responded to questions sent a week ago.