SOEs charge us exorbitant f
MBABANE – State-owned enterprises (SOEs) have been accused of attempting to cushion their finances by charging exorbitant fees for tender documents.
Small and medium enterprises (S0(s), in particular, claim that SO(s are milking them dry by charging exorbitant tender fees, and have since called for government to intervene by regulating the fees.
The indigenous businesses accused SO(s of raking in thousands of cash from adver tising tenders, which called on the bidders to pay for a tender document.
,t has been observed that SO(s charge between (500 to (2 500 non refundable tender fees.
The business owners said these fees took from the little they had and this was one of the stumbling blocks faced by S0(s.
This has been viewed as a practice to swindle local businesses. They noted that there was a lot that went through applying for SO( tenders, hence the fees needed to be controlled.
One supplier of cleaning materials and lu bricants mentioned that last year, the tender fee was (500 but this year the application of the same tender was (750 with a local parastatal. The businessman said before, they paid way lesser fees yet the parastatals printed the tender documents. They men tioned that SO(s no longer printed tender documents as they were available on the (swatini 3ublic 3rocurement 5egulatory Agency ((S335A) website.
³%efore the documents were made available online, the company had to print them. Surprisingly, we now download the documents and print them out ourselves, but still be expected to pay non refundable tender fees and they are becoming more expensive every year,” said another gov ernment supplier.
He said the reason they believed SO(s were using tenders to make cash was be cause some tenders were issued and after the deadline, the company would announce that the tender had been cancelled. ³After the cancellation of the tender, we are never refunded, hence we strongly believe that SO(s are swindling us through tenders,” said the entrepreneur.
Others accused parastatals of deliberately dividing one tender into three categories Must to collect more application fees. They said the tender fees needed to be scrapped, because these SO(s were no longer printing these documents or there should be, standard price not exceeding (400.
Regulated
³Tender fees for parastatals needed to be regulated Must like government tenders. *overnment tender applications are charged at (300,” the businessman said.
The businesses alleged that SO(s had become slick about the tendering process. They recounted how they had found a way of creating different tenders for one single product, so that they could make money from the application fees.
To explain their point, they made an example of electronics and hardware. ,t was alleged that there were cases where a company would need an information communication technology system, but, instead of issuing one tender, they would divide the tender into at least three different tenders. They would issue a tender for laptops and collect money on it. Then issue a tender for printers and another tender for cartridges.
The businesses accused (S335A of not being vigilant on such. They highlighted that Must a few weeks ago, (S335A launched a Standard 3ricing Catalogue for commonly used items under public procurement. The cata logue was said to reduce overpricing of commonly used items within the sector. The suppliers said the very same prices in the catalogue dated back to 2022, and some parastatals were using those prices on top of the tender fees.
4uestions were sent to (S335A and its mother ministry, the 0inistry of )inance, but they had not responded at the time the report was compiled. The 0inistry this )inance¶s Communica tions Officer, Setsabile Dlamini, referred Tuestions to (S335A.