Finance and Economic Opportunities
With regard to the Province’s quarter 3 procurement disclosure report for the 2020/21 financial year:
- (a) What is the detailed list of all the items that were procured by each department and entity, including the
- quantity and
- unit price and
(b) what are the details of the BBBEE compliance of all the suppliers that were contracted by the departments and entities;
2. whether his Department ensured strict adherence to the BBBEE provisions and to local content during PPE expenditure; if not, why not; if so, what are the relevant details?
- (a) (i) and (ii):
The information requested by the member is already in the public domain and is reported to the National Treasury on a monthly basis. This can be obtained via the National Treasury dashboard which can be found on the Provincial Treasury website:
https://www.westerncape.gov.za/provincial-treasury/procurement-disclosure-report
(b) The only information not published by the National Treasury, although reported to them, is B-BBEE representation for each transaction. This is due to the fact that this information is unaudited at this stage and compliance can only be assured once the procurement processes have undergone a complete and rigorous internal and external audit/ assurance process which is not the case for the reporting period referred to in this question.
The Provincial Treasury has extracted the unaudited data reported to the National Treasury on a monthly basis for the quarter in question and inserted B-BBEE contributor level status as at 22 March 2021(the date of extraction from the Supplier Evidence Bank), in terms of preferential procurement requirements. See ‘Annexure A’ attached.
B-BBEE and local content compliance is intrinsic to the procurement system of all procuring entities within the Western Cape Government.
The role of the Provincial Treasury is to enforce the prescripts and enable compliance. This is done through the issuance of Provincial Treasury Instructions and the provincial proforma/blueprint Accounting Officer’s System issued by the Provincial Treasury to ensure uniformity and standardisation in supply chain management and to enable departmental Accounting Officers in the Province to give effect to section 38(1(a)(iii) of the Public Finance Management Act 1 of 1999. This states that: “ The Accounting Officer for a department , trading entity or constitutional institution (a) must ensure that that department, trading entity or constitutional institution has and maintains- (iii) an appropriate procurement and provisioning system which is fair, equitable, transparent, competitive and cost effective.”
The Provincial Treasury also centrally manages the Supplier Evidence Bank (WC SEB), that is a central repository for all minimum compliance evidence documentation. This includes B-BBEE certification and affidavits as it relates to preferential procurement requirements as required by the Preferential Procurement Policy Framework Act, 2000, and its regulations.
These initiatives implemented by the Provincial Treasury ensure strict adherence to SCM prescripts.
The Provincial Treasury has also responded to various previous parliamentary questions as it relates to initiatives undertaken by the Provincial Treasury in respect of compliance to procurement prescripts during COVID-19 inclusive of PPE purchasing.
As it relates to B-BBEE compliance or local content compliance, the Provincial Treasury is not able to report on this at this stage, given that this is unaudited information. B-BBEE representation as noted in the first part of the question is depicted in the excel workbook attached is pre-audited information.
Local Content requirements must be fulfilled for each procurement process undertaken in respect of a designated sector and for this reason this information cannot be attached to a supplier but to a process ex post facto a bid being evaluated and certified as compliant by the South African Bureau of Standards. And so, the Member must secure this information from the relevant provincial departments as to where they are in respect of the local content verification process for tenders where this requirement is applicable as this cannot be ascertained from the current financial or procurement electronic systems.
