05 Mar 2020

Permanent secretary in the Ministry for Presidential Affairs, Governance and Public Administration, Mr Thuso Ramodimoosi says in the current era, digitisation of services is paramount.

As such he said Botswana cannot afford to be left behind. 

Giving a key note address at the official opening of the Public Procurement and Asset Disposal Board (PPADB) workshop for District Administration Tender Committees (DATC) on Tuesday, he said Botswana must rise to the occasion and align itself with the best in the world when it comes to service delivery. 

He noted that the theme of the workshop; Facilitating Sustainable Public Procurement and Asset Disposal Through Use of Information Communication Technology, called for the need to transform procurement from manual system to automation in the quest to improve service delivery. 

Mr Ramodimoosi said e-procurement had been identified as a vehicle to promote inclusiveness of citizens, promote fairness, system efficiency and effectiveness of their geographic location. 

He touched on Integrated Procurement Management System (IPMS), noting that it provides a contractor registration module that manages the information on companies that have been registered by the organisation to provide works, services and supplies to government. 

He said since the introduction of IPMS there had been limited delays in accessing information vital for the adjudication process. 

The permanent secretary indicated that the e-bidding module being rolled out across public procurement must therefore be supported to improve service delivery. 

He urged all DATCs lagging behind to step up and take up this opportunity to improve service delivery.

Mr Ramodimoosi mentioned that government had introduced various citizen empowerment schemes set out to encourage citizen participation in public procurement. 

He noted that such schemes included Citizen Economic Empowerment Policy, Local Procurement Scheme and Economic Diversification Drive (EDD). 

“It’s our duty to ensure that these empowerment schemes are provided for all bidding documents and applied to realise the intended objective,” he said. 

He also noted that section 72 of PPAD Act mandates that procurement preference and reservation schemes be applied to all bidding packages. 

He said DATC’s role was to ensure that all tender documents submitted for vetting addressed the statutory instrument 72 PPAD Act. 

He said a committee must measure how much of tenders go towards EDD to support local manufacturing within the district and what value of procurement drives poverty eradication programmes against the procurement in the district. 

Mr Ramodimoosi further indicated that DATC’s obligation was to monitor the level of adherence to the PPAD Act by procuring entities in their districts. 

He said it was important that DATC built capacity of procuring entities through providing guidance and counsel in areas where procuring entities were found to be lacking. 

“All committees are implored to adhere to procurement procedures and timelines for government to operate efficiently and reduce bottlenecks that lead to delays in project implementation and completion,” he said.

The workshop was meant to improve the organisation’s services and also to stimulate economic growth through the utilisation of Information Communication Technology (ICT).

It was attended by District Administration tender committees. Ends