24 Nov 2024

The Vice President, who is also the Minister of Finance, Mr Ndaba Gaolathe says wastage, mismanagement and corruption can generally manifest itself in many forms, primary among them being poor project planning and coordination, inadequate project scoping, cost overruns due to project delays, over-pricing, procurement irregularities, poor projects supervision leading to delivery of substandard work, fraud, fronting, tender collusion, lack of procurement skills, shortage of trained personnel among others.

Mr Gaolathe highlighted this when responding to a parliamentary question on Wednesday.

He said that government tenders were regulated by the Public Procurement Act of 2021 through the Public Procurement Regulatory Authority (PPRA).

“The PPRA oversees and regulates public procurement processes, to ensure that they are transparent, fair, and efficient. It has also issued a Code of Ethical Behaviour for procurement practitioners as well as a Code of Conduct for contractors that governs their operations,” he said.

Mr Gaolathe said that his ministry was aware that some bidders tend to inflate tender prices during the procurement process, but that the Public Procurement Act provided measures to address such.

Measures, he said, included issuance of a price guide to guide budgeting, planning, evaluation and award as well as contracting.

“In addition, the Public Procurement Act mandates accounting officers to provide an oversight role in their respective procurement processes, hence their authority to reject any tenders that are overpriced,” said Mr Gaolathe.

He said that further, there were also robust legal frameworks designed to maintain a strong system of financial governance that promoted transparency to deal with wastage of public resources, mismanagement and corruption.

Mr Gaolathe indicated that such included periodic inspections of the records and proceedings of a procuring entity by PPRA to ensure compliance.

He said that the PPRA was also mandated to conduct audits during the course of execution of an awarded tender, after the completion of a contract and at any stage of a procurement process.

“It is our considered view that our country loses billions of Pula to wastage due to poor management or negligence and corruption, and the ministry will at the appropriate time announce rigorous cost saving measures,” he said.

Such cost saving measures he said, included wastewater treatment, procurement costs, IT Systems, Development Manager Model, state owned enterprises and inflated rented properties among others.

Mr Gaolathe was responding to  Member of Parliament for Bobirwa, Mr Taolo Lucas who asked whether the minister  was aware of reports that over 30 per cent of the country’s development budget was lost to waste, mismanagement and corruption.

Mr Lucas also requested the minister to state the forms, types and nature of wastage, mismanagement and corruption and whether it was true that government tender prices were inflated to make provision for kickbacks to government officials and the ruling elite.

He also requested measures proposed or in place to deal with waste, mismanagement and corruption. Ends