Finance Minister Nhlanhla Nene on Tuesday launched a new central supplier database (CSD), which will ensure greater productivity and value for money from suppliers doing business with the State.

The database would also enable government to engage and manage major suppliers; scout, develop, and contract new suppliers; engage and manage small-to-medium enterprises (SMMEs) suppliers.

“This CSD is the first step towards standardising, automating and simplifying the fragmented supply chain management (SCM) system and is seen as the precursor to eProcurement in government.

“Currently, there is no single consolidated comprehensive supplier database and, consequently, information related to the compliance requirements of government, is duplicated during procurement processes,” he said at the launch at the Eastern Cape Industrial Development Zone.

Prospective suppliers could now self-register on the CSD website, which would have interfaces to the South African Revenue Service to enable tax clearance certificate verification and the Companies and Intellectual Property Commission for verification of business registration and business ownership information.

Further, the database would verify supplier information with the register for tender defaulters and database of restricted suppliers and would verify South African identification numbers with the Department of Home Affairs.

The database would now be the source of all supplier information for all organs of State, reduce duplication of effort and cost for both business and government, while enabling electronic procurement processes, as suppliers would only be required to register once when doing business with the State.

Suppliers that were in good standing on the various compliance requirements of government would experience a reduction in red tape and administrative burden when doing business with government.

It was expected that the standardised and electronic verification of supplier information would also lead to reduced fraud and a significant reduction in compliance audit effort and cost.

The database would also allow government to more effectively implement SCM policies and practices applicable to suppliers by, for example, dedicating 30% of sourcing to SMMEs.

Nene noted that he anticipated almost 250 000 suppliers to be registered in the next six months.