Staff Writer
Government is moving with haste to plug holes in the procurement laws for parastatals and State Owned Enterprises.
This comes as cabinet agreed to ring changes to the Public Procurement and Disposal of Assets Act, Chapter 22:23 which were presented by Honourable Vice President and Minister of Health and Child Care.
Cabinet noted that among other objectives, the Act provides for the control and regulation of public procurement and disposal of public assets to ensure that it is transparent, fair, honest, cost-effective and competitive.
"However, the Act in its current form does not sufficiently provide for capacity building of staff employed in public procurement roles, hence the often unsatisfactory compliance which undermines the integrity of public procurement processes.
"State enterprises and parastatals operating in competitive sectors and markets have also been placed at a disadvantage when compared to their private sector competitors because of inherent inefficiencies."
Accordingly, Information Minister Monica Mutsvangwa said cabinet agreed that the Auditor General be excluded from the membership of the Special Procurement.
“Oversight Committee. This is because one of the Auditor General’s functions in terms of section 309 of the Constitution is to audit the accounts, financial systems and financial management of all departments, institutions and agencies of Government as well as provincial and metropolitan councils and all local authorities," she added.
On Disposal of Assets to Employees, Cabinet noted that there is a loophole in the current Act which leaves room for close family members to manipulate the disposal of public assets. Accordingly, persons meeting the definition of “close family members” will now be disqualified from procuring public assets being disposed of, in order to promote fairness.
Furthermore, the wording of the original Act makes it optional rather than mandatory for procuring entities to accord preferential treatment to domestic service providers by all procuring entities. With respect to the procurement of construction works, the Act will now make it mandatory for foreign suppliers to engage local contractors and to also promote technology and skills transfer.
Regarding the stand-still period whereby procuring entities were not allowed to do anything for 14 days to allow for challenging of the award, Cabinet agreed that the lengthy 14-day stand-still period be reduced to 7 days.
The amended act also provides for quotas to women, war veterans, youths and other disadvantaged groups.
