Corruption Watch and the Public Affairs Research Institute (PARI) have
submitted the following open letter to President Cyril Ramaphosa and Minister
of Finance Tito Mboweni, both of whom have acknowledged receipt.
Dear President Ramaphosa and
Minister Mboweni,
We write to you as civil society
organisations deeply concerned at the high levels of corruption being committed
through our public procurement system. We call on you to take advantage of the
current opportunities and show decisive leadership to steer a collaborative
process as the draft Public Procurement Bill moves through Parliament.
Both of you have echoed South
Africans’ anger at the widespread corruption that has occurred under the novel
coronavirus state of disaster.
In your letter from 3 August 2020, Mr President,
you noted that “[a]ttempting to profit from a disaster that is claiming the
lives of our people every day is the action of scavengers”. Minister Mboweni,
you spoke about the “thieves waiting at the door” after you announced the
Covid-19 adjustment budget.
READ | Cyril Ramaphosa: Profiting from a pandemic is like a pack of hyenas circling a prey
But – despite the president’s
characterisation that these stories of corruption have reminded South Africans
of the state capture era – we cannot share in your disbelief at the
pandemic-related corruption. In fact, we, like many other South Africans,
approached any announcement of the diversion of funds to fight the virus with
scepticism, sure that the funds would also be used to line many pockets.
Rather
than the current corruption bringing back bad memories of state capture, our
experience of state capture has taught us to expect that some public officials
are unprincipled enough to exploit their access to public funds for personal
gain.
Mr President, you have referred to
the pandemic as an opportunity to “change the way we live, do business, and
govern”. The pandemic-related
corruption is a perfect example of the instability and turmoil that ill-judged
and corrupt procurement practices unleash on our society – incurring losses and
wasteful expenditure that our society simply cannot afford.
Fortuitously, there is another golden opportunity that
exists at the moment to introduce such change: the draft Public Procurement
Bill. We write to you in this letter about seizing the opportunity this draft
legislation could represent.
The majority of the corruption that
has been exposed during the pandemic has been through procurement processes.
Our organisational work involves analysing the public procurement sphere. It is
clear to us that there are significant weaknesses in the existing system which
enable – and even facilitate – widespread procurement corruption.
The draft
Bill offers us all an opportunity to create a new procurement system which will
allow for effective, efficient and transparent procurement of goods and
services while insulating the system from corruption.
This draft legislation represents one of the most
significant levers – if not the most significant – we can use to reform this
sphere, an area of work vital, as you well know, to a society concerned with
sustainable and inclusive growth and pursuing social justice.
However, we are concerned.
Despite
the importance of public procurement to the fortunes of our collective society
and despite the centrality of parliamentary legislation to this crucial state
practice, we do not sense from government the necessary degree of commitment,
urgency, and focus of the public mind which is immediately required on this
pivotal issue.
South Africa’s procurement system
must, in accordance with section 217 of the Constitution, be one which is “fair, equitable, transparent, competitive and
cost-effective”, and should provide for “the protection or advancement of
persons, or categories of persons, disadvantaged by unfair discrimination”.
These are lofty – though not unattainable – goals but, we believe, addressing
the weaknesses in the current system through the draft Bill will help realise
these constitutional promises.
Draft legislation
In order to achieve a piece of
legislation that will minimise the risk of corruption and ensure
competitiveness and fair and effective procedures within a transformative
system, we need a clear demonstration of strong political will and direction
from yourselves, as well as a willingness to collaborate with all stakeholders,
including civil society, in the drafting process.
While we welcome the
appearance of this draft legislation and understand the 30-day extension of the
period for comments decided upon by National Treasury, we believe that this
important process of policy formulation and legislative drafting in the
national interest is happening with neither the necessary focus nor with the
appropriate speed.
We urgently call on you both to
demonstrate the bold leadership and political will required to ensure the
re-drafting process is rigorous, participatory and decisive, and that it draws
input from all sectors of government. While the process must be driven by
National Treasury, civil society and the numerous other public bodies involved
in the procurement sphere have vital roles to play in shaping the content of
the Bill. Frankly, we do not see this happening in the efforts to date.
Both our organisations made
submissions on the draft Bill in June this year.
In those submissions we
indicated our unease with various elements of the Bill as it stands. We made a
broad range of concrete proposals to, among other things, streamline
procurement operations, constrain improper political interference in the
procurement system, improve transparency and accountability, and incentivise
and support whistle-blowers.
As civil society organisations, we remain committed to working with National
Treasury to strengthen the Bill and to construct a procurement system that
serves as a vehicle to address the most basic needs of society.
READ | Corruption Watch submission, Public Affairs Research Institute submission
While procurement law cannot be a
silver bullet, vigorous, swift and decisive debate over the shape and content
of the Public Procurement Bill can be more than an important first step towards
addressing current and persistent issues in this crucial area of government
activity.
As we have frequently seen over the past few months, our existing
procurement system needs a radical overhaul.
We now have an opportunity to
introduce a new system which can embed the best democratic practices when it
comes to the expenditure of public finance.
We simply cannot afford to squander
this opportunity. We call on you to take swift advantage of the joint
opportunity presented by the Covid-19 pandemic and the pre-existing procurement
law drafting process to engage civil society and all other stakeholders, to
give South Africa the best possible chance of introducing a sustainable
procurement system that can respond to the unique challenges our procurement
sphere presents.
– David
Lewis is the Executive Director of Corruption Watch and Dr Mbongiseni Buthelezi is the Executive Director of Public Affairs Research Institute
(PARI)
