ISO 10845 TO ADDRESS CONSTRUCTION PROCUREMENT ISSUES

MBABANE - The Construction Industry Council (CIC) of Eswatini has developed a construction procurement standard to address procurement related issues in construction.

This was revealed by CIC’s acting chief Executive Officer (CEO) Maqhawe Mnisi yesterday. Mnisi said they (CIC) collaborated with Eswatini Standards Authority and the Eswatini Public Procurement Regulatory Agency (ESPPRA) to develop construction procurement (ISO 10845) to be use by the industry. He said ISO 10845 has eight parts that cover all aspects of procurement in construction.

Contribution

“The standards have been completed and they shall be adopted after August 31, 2022, to allow the public and stakeholders to make contribution,” he said. The CEO added that ISO 10845 would address processes, method and procedures of procurement within the construction industry. About 95 per cent of tender dispute are related to construction, therefore ISO 10845 would outline the details construction companies have to follow when bidding for tenders. Mnisi added that the standards would also address the formatting and compilation of procurement documents. A majority of construction companies score low on evaluation because their documents were not in accordance to the required standards.

Conditions

The CEO added that they also look at the standard conditions of a tender which most construction companies shun away from, resulting to lost bids. He also mentioned that construction company’s failure to follow stipulated procedures has led to an increase in the number of local companies failing to acquire tenders. ESPPRA CEO Vusi Matsebula said they have made strides in capacitating procuring entities, in an effort to ensure the professionalisation of the public procurement function within procuring entities. He said this is because they want to expand on this overarching goal of elevating public procurement as a profession.

Procurement

“It is incumbent upon the agency to come up with a structural approach to bring together all procurement professionals in the country,” he said. Matsebula added gathering of the professionals with similar interests will enable them to develop a centralised database of procurement that will act as procurement human resource centre for organisation’s recruiting purposes which will be published on the ESPPRA. Controlling officer, in one of the leading construction companies said ISO 10845 is a necessity in the procurement of tenders for the industry.

Reasons

The controlling officer refused to be name because of ethical reasons related to his work. He said this was because they sometimes do not understand how they lose tenders they ‘over qualify’ for and the explanation they get from ESPPRA was not satisfactory. “We always submit bids on time and sometimes we actually feel that we overqualified for certain tenders which are then awarded to someone else,” he said.He added that this has contributed to conflicts and lose of confidence in the procurement system.

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