The National Treasury has effected changes to government’s emergency Covid-19 procurement measures.

Treasury on April 28 said it was replacing measures relating to its Covid-19 Disaster Management Central Emergency Procurement Strategy, namely Instruction Note 3 of 2020/21 and Circular 101.

The new measures will be Instruction Note 5 of 2020/21 for Public Finance Management Act institutions and Circular 102 for Municipal Finance Management Act institutions.

The new instruction note and circular will be on the National Treasury website soon.

The replacement follows various representations that have raised concerns about the procurement process, that the approach adopted has excluded a number of domestic suppliers and that it covered too wide an array of goods, especially goods that can be manufactured locally.

Treasury said the prior instruction note and circular were an initial response to the outbreak of the pandemic, and were to allow for urgent procurement of critical health products at a time of great global shortages.

“Given the rapid changes in demand for specialised products like testing kits and ventilators and further exacerbated by export bans, a national regulatory approach to procure goods centrally was required.”

The Covid-19 pandemic has brought about a new environment, necessitating procurement regulations to keep up with the rapid changes of demand. In the past few weeks, there has been an increase in the number of companies able to respond to the emergency procurement needs.

Treasury said it was committed to the Constitutional objective of having fair, equitable, transparent, competitive and cost-effective procurement processes that take into account the need for procuring essential health products required to fight the pandemic.

“These processes should be compliant with the country’s imperatives of promoting structural transformation and broadening participation in the economy to strengthen economic development and empowerment of previously disadvantaged groups and individuals,” Treasury noted.

In response to the changing demand and supply, as well as to give effect to the strict monitoring and reporting measures required during times of emergency procurement, the new instruction note and circular will provide measures to put in place for Covid-19 emergency procurement.

It will also open the supply of these products to all suppliers conforming to specifications and registered on the Central Supplier database of government; outline the required personal protective equipment (PPE) item specifications according to the Department of Trade, Industry and Competition, national Department of Health and World Health Organisation requirements; outline the maximum prices at which government will procure these PPE items; and outline emergency procurement, monitoring and reporting requirements.