Times Of Swaziland: ISO 10845 TO ADDRESS CONSTRUCTION PROCUREMENT ISSUES

ISO 10845 TO ADDRESS CONSTRUCTION PROCUREMENT ISSUES
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Mhlengi Magongo on 19/07/2022 07:07:00


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.