Times Of Swaziland: CTA STATIONERY CONTEST BEGINS

CTA STATIONERY CONTEST BEGINS
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  BY KWANELE DHLADHLA  on 28/02/2018 04:21:00


MBABANE – The race is on.  Eight companies have tendered for the multimillion
tender for the supply and delivery of Central Transport Administration (CTA)
printed stationery under tender number 14 of 2018/19.
SPPRA Acting Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Musa Sikhondze is on record stating
that government spends nearly E10 billion of public funds in procurement of
goods and services which is inclusive the stationery to be supplied to CTA.
The companies that will be contesting to become suppliers of the department
under the Ministry of Public Works and Transport (listed in no particular order
as evaluation has not yet been undertaken) are:  Blue Ribbon Pty Ltd, Baobab
Express Printers, Step Up, Mbuyazwe Book Binding, Babylon Investments, Print
Design, F&R Stationery & Print and Empower Press.
The public tender opening exercise undertaken at the Government Treasury
Department on Friday morning followed a compulsory pre-tender meeting convened
at the Mbabane CTA body shop on February 7, 2018 between 3pm and 4pm.
The opening was conducted by Bheki Sithole in accordance with the Swaziland
Public Procurement Act of 2011.
In terms of the Act, the Swaziland Public Procurement Regulatory Agency (SPPRA)
should be informed by the procuring entity of any procurement to be undertaken,
be informed of the intention to award a contract and also be informed on whom
the tender has been awarded to but this hardly happens with a lot of government
institutions which makes it hard for the agency to execute their mandate.
However, this is not to suggest that CTA has not or will not adhere to procedure
in the tender whose evaluation is expected to commence soon.
In terms of Section 10(c) of the Public Procurement Act of 2011, the mandate of
SPPRA includes monitoring compliance with the Act and procurement performance by
procuring entities, conduct audits of any procurement activities (compliance and
performance audits) and investigate the conduct of any procurement activities
suspected to involve violations of the Act and regulations.
The agency also refers breaches of the Act to the relevant budgetary, oversight
and law enforcement bodies.
Required documents to help give assurance that they would be in the race to be
granted what is arguably one of the biggest jobs for companies in the stationery
and printing included, but were not limited to, Trading Licence, Form J and C,
Labour Compliance Certificate and Tax Clearance Certificate. These documents
were verified by Sithole for authenticity.