ESPPRA CREATES DIRECTORY, CALLS FOR SUPPLIERS’ INFORMATION

MBABANE – One of the challenges in procurement is gaining access to the list of suppliers as they are not listed in any procurement directory.

This further contributed to local procuring entities sourcing suppliers abroad as they had their own directory. The challenge has prompted the regulator of procurement locally to create a suppliers directory for easy access and grouping of suppliers. Suppliers who specialise in the supply of commodities and or provision of the services are invited to provide their information to be included in suppliers’ directory. This was mentioned by Eswatini Public Procurement Regulatory Agency (ESPPRA) Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Vusumutiwendvodza Matsebula in an interview yesterday.

Matsebula said the suppliers’ directory would be a resource centre for procuring entities in their bid towards understanding the service providers that are available and those that are not in the market. He said through the suppliers’ directory, they aimed at assisting procuring entities achieve the maximum competition principle to ensure value for money in public procurement as envisaged by Section 38 of the Procurement Act. “For engagement of suppliers in the directory, procuring entities will need to assess the eligibility of suppliers to participate in public procurement as envisaged by Section 40 of the Act and any other eligibility requirement that will be deemed necessary by the procuring entity during time of tender,” he added.

Alluded

The CEO alluded that the business environment of Eswatini continued to grow with new businesses emerging on a daily basis. He said procuring entities, however, still experienced difficulties with obtaining suppliers and or service providers of certain commodities and goods leading to low tender response rates and increase in failed tenders. “In cases of limited tenders and single sourcing procurements, Procuring Entities (PEs) continue to approach the ‘well-known’ service providers disregarding the new players that have entered the market,” he added. Matsebula also mentioned that they, therefore, sought to collect information on all available suppliers that were currently providing goods, services and works to procuring entities and those that would be interested in supplying public entities in the future to register their details with the agency for purposes of developing a suppliers’ directory that will be published on the ESPPRA website.

Provide

He said suppliers specialising on works do not need to provide information for inclusion in the suppliers’ directory as their details would be sourced from the Construction Industry Council (CIC) database. “Suppliers are not required to submit their eligibility documents at this stage, however, will be expected to submit eligibility documents as envisaged by Section 40 of the Act when participating in a tender and the vetting of eligibility will be conducted by the procuring entity,” he added. When asked about the registration process and requirements, the CEO said interested suppliers should self-register on the ESPPRA website as per the guideline provided under registration procedure and they are not required to provide any documentation of eligibility. One of the main issues affecting procurement in Eswatini is contract allocation, where the private sector is of the view that favouritism is applied when allocating contracts. This has dominated the number complaints submitted by most companies to ESPPRA when the Intention To Award (ITA) is released.

Improved

World Bank’s Chief Procurement Officer (CPO) Enzo de Laurentis said the World Bank has significantly improved its IT systems to track physical and financial implementation of contracts. Laurentis was speaking during the African Public Procurement Network (APPN) Second General Assembly (SGA) hosted by Eswatini at Hilton Garden Inn, Mbabane.
The CPO said they have Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and other tools to follow-up on issues and remedy them. “This is going to be a tool that we will of course provide to our clients and we will use ourselves in our oversight function of our projects. I don’t know if you’re familiar in the bank, there is an independent panel that looks after complaints on the way that the company has come from our own environmental and social policies,” he said. He added that they were also working on guidance on supply chain management to help their buyer countries build resilience in their supply chains. Laurentis said this would increase private sector participation.

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