National Treasury has launched the eTender publication portal and central supplier database (CSD) to eliminate duplication and fragmentation of notices for government tenders and provide a consolidated list of supplier information for government, respectively.

The e-Tender publication portal – which is an initiative of the Treasury’s Office of the Chief Procurement Officer (OCPO) – is a single platform for the publication of tenders that aims to simplify, standardise and automate the procurement process. It can be accessed at www.etenders.gov.za.

National and provincial departments will publish their tenders in line with the demand plans for the acquisition of goods, services and infrastructure. For procurement plans that have been approved, the tenders for the 2015/16 financial year will be published as from the end of April.

Municipalities will start to publish their tenders on the portal on July 1, to coincide with the start of the new financial year for municipalities.

The portal will feature tender notices, official tender documents and relevant terms of reference or other descriptions of functionality that may be applicable, as well as the publication of award notices and minimum information prescribed by the OCPO.

The eTender portal will be managed by the OCPO, which sets the policy on content and functionality and coordinates the administration with users at a national, provincial and local government level.

According to a statement issued by Treasury, the eTender portal was the first step towards the implementation of government’s eProcurement system as part of the Integrated Financial Management System.

Further, Treasury believes the portal will directly contribute to reducing duplication, fragmentation and inefficiency in government tender publications.

The portal will also reduce the costs and effort associated with traditional tender publications and will improve the transparency and accountability with regard to the awarding of government tenders.

CENTRAL SUPPLIER DATABASE
The CSD is aimed at reducing the duplication of effort and cost for both business and government, while enabling electronic procurement processes.

The CSD will have interfaces to the South African Revenue Service to enable tax clearance status verification of suppliers throughout the Procure-to-Pay process and the Companies and Intellectual Property Commission for vetting of business registration and business ownership.

Suppliers who are currently registered on a supplier database of any organ of State will be automatically transferred to the supplier database by March 31, 2016. New suppliers will have the option of using the self-registration portal of the CSD from September 1.

The benefit for the private sector will be a reduction of red tape and administrative effort when doing business with government. Compliance requirements will be easy to meet for suppliers that are in good standing on the various compliance requirements.

Government believes that modernising supply chain management through technological innovation will enable it to reduce the administrative burden for itself and business and improve the monitoring of procurement patterns, contracts and prices.