Gamuchirai Tsokota
The Procurement Regulatory Authority of Zimbabwe (PRAZ) says the new public procurement Act is a key policy document which will be instrumental in containing ballooning public expenditure.
PRAZ chief executive officer, Nyasha Chizu, this week told journalists attending the regulator’s breakfast meeting held in the capital that procurement is a strategic tool in public services delivery hence the need to professionalise and modernise the process.
Government, in January this year, gazetted new regulations for public procurement to guide State procuring entities following the enactment of the Public Procurement and Disposal of Public Assets Act.
The Act repealed the Procurement Act and abolished the State Procurement Board (SPB), a body which was conducting procurement on behalf of government entities.
In place of SPB, PRAZ was set up.
“The Public Procurement and Disposal of Public Assets Act is the key instrument to achieving the upper middle class economy,” Chizu said.
“ For us to be effective and efficient it means we would have acquired whatever goods and services that we want to provide to public services in the manner that is also effective and efficient.
“Procurement must be effected in a manner that is transparent, procurement process must be fair, procurement process must be honest and they must be cost effective.”
Chizu said in order to limit corruption, the Act now provides for sanctions for procuring entities and for suppliers.
The Procurement Act had limitations that would inhibit the accumulation of the vision by President Emerson Mnangagwa of an upper –middle class income .Transparency was only catered for at the level of advertising of the tender and evaluation process, Chizu said.
“When you look at procurement it is like a football match,” he said.
“In a soccer match, rigging is never on the field of play (but) is done before the match that is where players and coaches are paid to come up with a team that is not efficient .So it was observed that our Act was only regulating the field of play. Our Act now covers the whole procurement process from procurement planning through the tender process to award of tender, contract management and asset disposal.”
Chizu added: “We had a situation where we had the policeman, the robber, the magistrate and the prosecutor in one office so the state of procurement was compromised so there was the need to separate regulatory functions from operating function.”
PRAZ will oversee public procurement proceedings and regulate procurement activities conducted by government ministries, parastatals and local authorities, to ensure transparency, fairness, honesty, cost effectiveness and competition.
This means, procurement entities are supposed to establish procurement management units to manage all aspects of their procurement activities. The law requires procurement professionals manning the units to be licenced by PRAZ.
Under Section 95 of the new Act, it gives PRAZ power to appoint investigators to look into suspected contraventions of the law in relation to procurement.
However, the progress on the implementation of the Act had been slow.
