COMPLIANCY ISS
South Africa’s mixed messages on procurement corruption Despite new revelations of mega-public sector corruption, delays in adopting the Public Procurement Bill persist. By Richard Chelin, who works for the INSTITUTE FOR SECURITY STUDIES (ISS). Article was first published by ISS TODAY, https://issafrica.org/iss-today/south-africas-mixed-messages-on-procurement-corruption
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outh Africa desperately needs laws to stop procurement corruption. Recent revelations by Daily Maverick/Scorpio of the R150 million Digital Vibes scandal involving contracts related to the government’s fight against COVID-19 underscore this. On 1 September, South Africa’s Special Investigating Unit (SIU) told Parliament that government expenditure related to COVID-19 from April 2020 to June 2021 totalled R138.8 billion, of which R14.8 billion was being investigated for procurement irregularities. This did not include the Digital Vibes saga. And that
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hefty sum reported by the SIU is just the tip of South Africa’s procurement corruption iceberg. So when the Public Procurement Bill was tabled in Parliament in February 2020, it was received with optimism. While it is a long overdue step, the bill’s year-and-a-half delay doesn’t inspire confidence that those responsible for procurement are in a hurry to see it passed. The first major procurement scandal in democratic South Africa was the 1999 Arms Deal that saw R30 billion of defence equipment purchased. Since then, a litany of graft cases has cost the
economy many billions in taxpayers’ money. Testifying at the Zondo Commission, National Treasury’s acting chief procurement officer Willie Mathebula noted that in 2017 more than 50% of the annual R800 billion procurement budget was lost due to intentional abuse of the system.
The bill’s year-anda-half delay doesn’t inspire confidence that government is in a hurry to see it passed securityfocusafrica.com
