Bring An End To Tender Exemptions
JUST what has our military accomplished to deserve a toast and merry-making when the Ministry of Defence claimed just before Christmas that it urgently needed champagne and whiskey glasses? And, perhaps to spruce up the party spot, they also bought garden tools!
As curious as it may sound that the military ‘urgently’ required to buy alcohol glasses, garden tools and kitchen utensils on Christmas eve, that is not the most worrying part for taxpayers who had to fork out N$2 million for this purchase. Far more worrying is that the Ministry of Defence questionably asked to be exempted from advertised and competitive tender procedures and instead simply selected companies from which to purchase.
Government purchase rules involving millions of dollars normally require that a tender be advertised to allow for competitive bidding and give the state a chance to get goods and services at the best possible prices. To get exemption, the government agency should provide worthwhile reasons such as security concerns and urgency. But over the past few years there have been too many “closed tenders” whereby government institutions hand-pick several companies and award the contracts.
Lately, the Ministry of Defence has been in the limelight for requesting exemptions for contracts amounting to billions of dollars for goods and services such as the champagne glasses as well as catering meals for soldiers (a N$1.5 billion contract).
Bypassing the open bidding process has become such a serious problem that the Ministry of Finance, under which the Tender Board resorts, has decided to overhaul laws and regulations to tighten what many have correctly identified as loopholes.
Government employees, especially the top-ranking officials, have been reported as picking the most expensive companies and with the least reliable records to supply the goods and services with the reason to simply siphon money from state coffers into their pockets.
This ruse, known in South Africa as ‘tenderpreneurship’ , is nothing but a cancer that has been spreading and can only lead to lack of public confidence in the state’s procurement process. ‘Ghomtjas’ – a breed of wheeler dealers – have literally come to hover above the public trough, snatching up deals more through connections to officials than because of their business acumen or the quality of products they supply.
The Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) has pointed attention to such loopholes through which ghomtjas have made hay while the government drags its feet in tightening the processes.
In the 2005/6 budget public contracts worth N$619 million were awarded through the Tender Board system of the Ministry of Finance. About N$170 million of those were exempted from the public bidding system and thus decided at ministerial level.
In 2006/7, according to the IPPR research, the amount of contracts awarded without going to the Tender Board shot up to N$1.6 billion government projects given to private firms without going through the open bidding process and only N$868 million worth of contracts went on public tender. In 2007/8 financial year the phenomenon doubled to N$3.4 billion, with only N$624 million making it through scrutiny of the Tender Board.
At the rate government officials are taking purchasing decisions out of the public arena, we shudder to think what the dollar amounts are at this stage. Mind you the state over the past three years allocated N$14 billion for the job-creation scheme with the acronym Tipeeg.
The government ought to move fast in saving the taxpayers from having state funds further misused. For there is no other way to see it than coming to the conclusion that contracts are being decided behind closed doors to favour a select few. Namibia will be worse off, both financially and ethically, unless the erosion of transparency and accountability is arrested.