New procurement directives from National Treasury aim to boost transparency

The National Treasury’s Director-General, Dr Duncan Pieterse, has issued new stringent procurement directives to be followed by government departments and entities.

In terms of the directives, Treasury plans to implement measures to make the government’s procurement more transparent, including what the state wants to buy.

“National Treasury aims to strengthen public trust and foster public accountability and promote transparency in procurement systems as mandated by legislation,” reads Pieterse’s directive.

It adds that it aims to provide for the reporting of procurement information of the departments, constitutional institutions, and public entities in a dashboard to enhance transparency and supply chain management (SCM) strategic decision-making based on credible information.

Pieterse also wants the state to pay in real time. The Constitution requires national legislation to prescribe measures to ensure transparency and expenditure control in all spheres of government.

In addition, the Public Finance Management Act requires the National Treasury to promote and enforce transparency and effective management in respect of revenue, expenditure, assets and liabilities of departments, public entities, and constitutional institutions.

According to Pieterse, the National Treasury aims to strengthen public trust and foster public accountability in the procurement systems.

“This will be enhanced by making the procurement systems more transparent through the publication of procurement information of institutions.

“The information will include, but is not limited to, supplier and ownership details, the nature, value, and quantity of procurement transactions, and payments made to suppliers,” he wrote to heads of government institutions and entities.

The National Treasury has also undertaken to publish procurement information obtained from procurement and payment transactions recorded in the basic accounting system, logistical information system, and other institutional systems submitted through the transactions application programming interface and data upload tool of the office of the Chief Procurement Officer of the National Treasury.

State departments will be required to report any spending exceeding R1 million.

“An institution must report all extensions, expansions, early terminations, and other variations of procurement contracts … on the www.etenders.co.za within 10 days from the date of signature of the amendment of the contract.

“In addition, to improve the management of conflict of interest in procurement by institutions, an institution that is not using the government’s personnel and salary system must, within 10 days after the end of each month, submit information of employees of the institution for that month on the central supplier database in the format provided on the employee upload tool.”

loyiso.sidimba@inl.co.za