RYAN CHIGOCHE
The Procurement Regulatory Authority of Zimbabwe (PRAZ)’s electronic government project has stalled due to lack of funding, Business Times can report.
PRAZ chief executive officer, Clever Ruswa, said funding constraints were frustrating the public procurement regulator.
“…There were pledges that were made by other development partners. But, as we went into Covid-19 in 2020, those priorities then shifted to other humanitarian issues and resources were small to support us hence the delay. Ever since we started as PRAZ we expected that by now we should have a full-fledged e-government programme running,” Ruswa said.
He added: “When we planned we wanted US$7m. However, with the development that has been happening in the ICT sector we expect the prices to have gone down. So we are reviewing the strategy to check if the price is still the same such that when we go to the Treasury and our development partners we are talking of very realistic figures.
“It’s critical because it eliminates a lot of corruption.’’
The e-government programme is an electronic government procurement system or end to end electronic governance which removes the human interface as the human is bound to be corrupted when dealing with bidders so the end to end part of the system will curb that and also increase efficiency.
According to the 2021 special Covid-19 Auditor General report, the procurement of goods and services by State-owned entities violated procurement contracts and was done in the absence of an approved procurement plan.
The Public Procurement and Disposal of Public Assets Act [Chapter 22:23] was operationalised in 2017, repealing the Procurement Act [Chapter 22:14] and dissolved the State Procurement Board.
PRAZ was established on January 1, 2018 with the mandate of supervising public procurement proceedings to ensure transparency, fairness, honesty, cost-effectiveness and competition.
The e-government will connect all the State entities on one portal, meaning the issues for review and monitoring will be also easier.
