https://www.polity.org.za
Deepening Democracy through Access to Information
Home / Recommendations RSS ← Back
Financial|Bearing
Financial|Bearing
financial|bearing
Close

Email this article

separate emails by commas, maximum limit of 4 addresses

Sponsored by

Close

Article Enquiry

Corruption Watch concerned about sudden surge in procurement report deviations

Close

Embed Video

Corruption Watch concerned about sudden surge in procurement report deviations

Corruption Watch logo

20th September 2024

By: Thabi Shomolekae
Creamer Media Senior Writer

ARTICLE ENQUIRY      SAVE THIS ARTICLE      EMAIL THIS ARTICLE

Font size: -+

  • 2024 Procurement Watch report
    Download
    7.61 MB
Sponsored by

Stellenbosch University African Procurement Law Unit founding director Professor Geo Quinot noted on Friday that while deviation numbers in various departmental procurement reports decreased from 2017/18 to 2021/22, a sudden surge in deviations in the last two years is a cause for concern.

He noted that this may reflect increased reporting of deviations rather than an actual increase in deviations.

Advertisement

Corruption Watch launched its fourth 'Procurement Watch Risk Trends' report, which revealed the 2024 risk trends in public procurement and the number of deviations from prescribed procurement procedures reported by provincial and national departments to National Treasury from 2016 to the fourth quarter of the 2023/24 financial year.

Quinot noted a massive increase of 207% in deviations from 2022/23 to 2023/24.

Advertisement

He said that while the number of reported deviations increased dramatically between 2021/22 and 2023/24, the value of deviations, interestingly, fluctuated significantly.

“…these values are based on the reported value of deviations, bearing in mind that in a notable number of instances the value of the deviation was not reported,” he said.

He pointed out that the total reported value of procurement through deviations in 2021/22 was around R34-billion, and R11.9-billion in 2022/23, adding that in 2023/24 financial year, the total reported value of procurement through deviations increased to around R24.8-billion.

“Thus, while the total number of reported deviations increased more than five times in value from 2021/22 to 2023/24, the value of such deviations has declined. It is not clear that this represents a trend,” he added.

Meanwhile, Quinot explained that while reported contract expansions had steadily declined from 2017/18 to 2020/21, the data showed a slowing down of the decline in 2021/22 and an increase in reported expansions from 2022/23.

In 2023/24, there was a rapid increase in the number of contract expansions to 896, with the total value of expansions in 2023/2024 exceeding R37.8-billion.

Quinot said this was based on the reported value of expansions, which he noted was four times less the total reported value of expansions in 2022/23 (R157-billion).

“…the number of reported expansions in 2023/24 (894) rose when compared to 2022/23 (673). The implication is that while the number of expansions is rising, the average value has declined in 2023/24,” he highlighted.

He explained that the original value of the expanded contracts in 2023/24 was R33-billion, and the contract expansion value was R37.8-billion, saying this entailed a 115% average increase in contract value.

“There can be little doubt that a procurement contract that is doubled in terms of value after award is materially different in terms from the contract awarded by way of the procurement process. As with deviations, however, there is significant variance in the percentage increases through expansions between the 894 cases,” he noted.

 

EMAIL THIS ARTICLE      SAVE THIS ARTICLE ARTICLE ENQUIRY

To subscribe email subscriptions@creamermedia.co.za or click here
To advertise email advertising@creamermedia.co.za or click here

Comment Guidelines

About

Polity.org.za is a product of Creamer Media.
www.creamermedia.co.za

Other Creamer Media Products include:
Engineering News
Mining Weekly
Research Channel Africa

Read more

Subscriptions

We offer a variety of subscriptions to our Magazine, Website, PDF Reports and our photo library.

Subscriptions are available via the Creamer Media Store.

View store

Advertise

Advertising on Polity.org.za is an effective way to build and consolidate a company's profile among clients and prospective clients. Email advertising@creamermedia.co.za

View options

Email Registration Success

Thank you, you have successfully subscribed to one or more of Creamer Media’s email newsletters. You should start receiving the email newsletters in due course.

Our email newsletters may land in your junk or spam folder. To prevent this, kindly add newsletters@creamermedia.co.za to your address book or safe sender list. If you experience any issues with the receipt of our email newsletters, please email subscriptions@creamermedia.co.za