Some R30-billion of South Africa’s R150-billion public procurement budget is lost to corruption, estimates TFAC and its alliance partner Sentigol, supplier of the Tendersure system.
Much of the loss is through rip-offs, overpricing, tender rigging and manipulation, reports TFAC.
Legislation to challenge corruption has a limited impact, however, deploying effective Information Technology packages to overhaul procurement could make it much harder for people to defraud the system.
Sentigol’s Tendersure is one such system.
Tendersure is a web-based tender evaluation system that “will remove corruption from the tender system,” Werner Coetzee, Sentigol CEO, said in an interview on Classic FM in July.
Tendersure is a transparent tender evaluation tool that prospective bidding organisations can complete online.
“Corporate South Africa has embraced the system with open arms,” said Coetzee.
However, the success in the private sector that the system has enjoyed over the past year is not mirrored in the public sector, with only a handful of municipalities implementing the software.
“When we offer Tendersure to government it is an unsolicited bid, a filthy word in government. Also, the implementation of a new government system is of course subject to a tender process,” he said.
Meanwhile PricewaterhouseCoopers has revealed that its global survey into public sector fraud indicated that 37% of government-owned enterprises had seen an increase in economic crime in the past twelve months, higher than any other type of organisation.
SmartProcurement is offering readers the chance to get up-to-date with the latest developments and issues affecting government procurement at our 2nd Annual Public Sector Supply Chain Management Summit in November, part of the SmartProcurement World conference and exhibition.
The Summit will spotlight best practices, case studies, leading trends, advances and success stories in Public Sector Supply Chain Management.
