The ManicaPost
Cletus Mushanawani in Kariba —
GOVERNMENT is in the process of amending the Procurement Act to render public procurement process more efficient and transparency. Addressing media participants at a Zimbabwe Procurement and Contracting Workshop for media personnel in Kariba on Tuesday, senior principal director in the Office of The President and Cabinet, Mr Solomon Mhlanga, said the subject of public procurement reform has been identified at the highest level of both the Executive and the Legislature as key driver to efficient public service delivery.
“There is a Constitutional provision that requires the promulgation of an Act of Parliament that addresses the procurement of public goods, services and works in a manner that is transparent, fair, honest, costs-effective and competitive.
“This was given impetus by the announcement made by President Mugabe during the official opening of the Second Session of the Eight Parliament in October 2014 and the State of the Nation Address in August 2015 that the Procurement Act shall be amended to render public procurement process more efficient, transparent and in consonance with other policy initiatives and developments in the technological front,” said Mr Mhlanga.
Government in 2010 with the support of the World Bank commissioned a Country Integrated Fiduciary Assessment project through the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning that assessed Public Finance Management Systems and the Public Procurement Systems to identify gaps in the public sector.
The CIFA project also produced a Country Procurement Assessment Report that was adopted by Government in Harare on February 11, 2015. The procurement reform programme has two phases, the first one being the legislative review and capacity building followed by the second phase of e-procurement in line with the broader e-Government agenda.
“The first phase shall incorporate provisions of an e-enabled public procurement framework for the progression to the second phase. The support from development partners facilitated the engagement of Crown Agents, the legislative reform consultants who assisted Government to develop the principles of the new Procurement Bill formed that formed the framework for the Draft Bill that has a target for assertion by President Mugabe before the end of this year.
“Reforming and moderisation of the State Procurement Board is one of the key elements of ensuring that ministries, parastatals and State enterprises become more transparent and accountable in discharging their mandates, hence improving service delivery to the citizenry in line with the requirements of our socio-economic blueprint, Zim-Asset,” said Mr Mhlanga.
He said the main objective of the reform process is to transform the State Procurement Board into an authority responsible for setting procurement standards and guidelines performing monitoring and evaluation role over procuring entities that shall be responsible for the management of the procurement process in a decentralised environment.
“All public entities comprising Government ministries, parastatals, State enterprises and local authorities will be capacitated through robust skills development programmes to enable accounting officers and respective entities to undertake their own procurement. To achieve this goal, professionalisation of procurement is at the centre of this reform process to ensure the public sector achieve value for money in the procurement process,” said Mr Mhlanga.
Senior Procurement Executive in the Office of President and Cabinet, Mr Nyasha Chizu, said the process of coming up with the Bill was with the Attorney General’s office and was being prepared to be gazette in Parliament.
“The Bill went through the Cabinet Committee on Legislation in June this year and passed through full Cabinet in July. It is currently with the Attorney General’s Office who is preparing to gazette it for the Parliament process.
“Once gazette, Parliament is expected to conduct public hearings and the Bill will be considered by the Parliament Legal Committee to see if it is not violating any constitutional provisions,” said Mr Chizu.
