In support of Gauteng Premier David Makhura’s vision of a “radical transformation” of the provincial public sector, Gauteng MEC for Finance Barbara Creecy announced on Thursday that Provincial Treasury and the provincial Department of Transport (DoT) have agreed to pilot an open, transparent tender application process in the current financial year.

The pilot project, which aimed to “enhance the openness and transparency of provincial procurement processes”, would be applied to selected tenders of various scopes issued by the provincial DoT.

This would assist in the development of a model for open tendering by departments in the Gauteng Provincial Government (GPG) that could be presented to the provincial Executive Council for consideration and adoption.

“We’ll choose a range of tenders; one big, one medium-sized and one small, and look at how these work within the tender process in terms of tranparency. We want to build an institutional tendering process that becomes more transparent, as we want people to know that successful bidders deserve to be awarded that tender,” Creecy commented.

Through the pilot process, bidders would receive support from the GPG to enable them to comply with documentary requirements prior to the deadline for the tender.

It would also see the screening of members of the departmental acquisition committees for possible conflicts of interest.

Briefing the media on departmental strategic planning processes ahead of her departmental Budget Vote in the Provincial Legislature on Friday, Creecy added that Treasury would also introduce independent compliance audits of the evaluation processes prior to the awarding of tenders, after which the name of the successful bidder would be made public.

She further stated that the model would investigate the viability of developing an online tender bidding system, enabling the public to access information concerning various tenders, at which stage the tender process had arrived, as well as providing additional nonsensitive information about the applicant firms.

“We have to reassure citizens of efforts made towards a clean and transparent government. No citizen [should have to] doubt the integrity of the State in the administration of tenders, whether those contracted for projects are qualified to implement and complete the work they are contracted for and that the tendering process is open and fair,” she emphasised.

LATE PAYMENTS
The MEC further committed on Thursday to tackling the late payment of service providers by the province “with renewed vigour”,  having on Monday met with officials responsible for the processing of supplier payments in the Gauteng Department of Finance and the Gauteng Provincial Treasury.

To accelerate the payment of service providers to within a 30-day period, the province was establishing an electronic platform that could be accessed by all current and prospective GPG suppliers, enabling them to send invoices and directly communicate with the Provincial Treasury over nonpayments.

This would also improve the existing invoice and payment tracking system to identify and elevate problem areas for rapid decision-making, as well as work with departments to further simplify their payment and approval processes.

“[The province’s] processes around the approval of payments is very long and [complicated]. We want to simplify these, but need to ensure that the verification of invoices remains intact. We think it’s possible to condense the process,” she outlined.

According to Provincial Treasury, the province had made some ground in reducing the time in which it paid its various service providers, stating that, in the 2011/12 fiscal period, only 27% of GPG suppliers were paid within 30 days. In 2012/13, this figure had grown to 51% and to 82% in 2013/14. 

“Of the fifteen departments, 12 have performed at an average level of 96%. We are proud of the fact that the so-called big spenders, the departments of Health and Education, are now averaging 75% compliance and we intend to focus here over the next couple of months to ensure that we meet the Premier’s target,” Creecy said.

BROADBAND ROLL-OUT
Provincial government would, meanwhile, continue with the roll-out of the Gauteng Broadband Network (GBN), which had been identified as a key mechanism to bring about a “connected government”.

“This strategic investment in broadband will result in a fibre-optic transmission network of 1 600 km across the province. This network will connect all provincial government buildings, including regional satellite offices, hospitals, and schools,” she said.

Before the end of the financial year, six core sites would be connected: the Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital, in Soweto; the Gauteng Department of Finance, in Johannesburg; the Industrial Development Corporation, in Sandton; the West Rand District Offices, in Randfontein; data provider Teraco, in Kempton Park; and Telkom’s government data centre.

These core sites were distribution nodes from which it will be possible to connect to other government buildings.

“One of the criteria for judging the success of this project is cost saving.  At present, the total spend on the telecommunications bill for the Gauteng Provincial Government is R2.2-billion. The GBN is expected to yield savings of R162-million a year once it is fully rolled out to the provincial government,” Creecy noted.