Local firms don’t bid -ZPPA

THERE is low participation by local companies in bidding for tenders, the Zambia Public Procurement Authority (ZPPA) has said.

ZPPA electronic governance procurement manager Ethel Nunkwe said few Zambian companies bid for tender even when it was open international tender.

Ms Nunkwe was reacting to claims that more procurement and supply tenders were usually given to foreign companies than local ones.

She said the tenders were awarded to the best evaluated bidder who were mostly foreigners because they were the majority bidders.

Ms Nunkwe, however, said it was not true that every bidding process resulted in a foreign company being awarded the contract.

She said the reason many tenders were being awarded to foreigners was that local companies were not participating in the bidding processes.

“It is not true that tenders are given to foreign companies. The problem is that local companies do not participate in the bidding which would lead to foreign companies being awarded the tender,” Ms Nunkwe said. She said despite that being the trend, Government had put in place a policy aimed at increasing local participation.

Each foreign company that won a public tender had to partner with a local company to ensure Zambians did not lose out completely.

Meanwhile, Ms Nunkwe says ZPPA is in the process of rolling out the open E-Governance Procurement System which was launched in 2016 by President Edgar Lungu to other procurement entities in the public sectors.

She said the system had been extended to advertising and publishing annual procurement plans.

Ms Nunkwe said 692 tenders had gone through the E-Governance Procurement System since its inception, which included simplified bidding, open bidding and limited bidding.