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Quality vs Price

South Africa does not have sufficient capacity of consulting engineers, but the distortion brought about
by the Preferential Procurement Policy Framework Act, which uses criteria other than quality in securing
goods and services, and erroneously for procuring this specialised professional service of consulting
engineering, in this similar manner has blinded the true picture for South Africa.

“Consulting engineers who are experts in their respective disciplines have to compete for work based on
price in a country that truly has a chronic shortage of engineers especially consulting engineers to assist
in the accelerated planning and design of infrastructure projects so that six million jobs can be unlocked in
the next five years as the electioneering manifesto of the ruling ANC Government goes,” says CESA CEO
Lefadi Makibinyane.

He states that it is imperative that the Government of South Africa realises and acknowledges the fact
that our country unlike many other developed countries of the world does not have the internal capacity
to plan and design for infrastructure projects and as a result the capability of the State in all three tiers
of government is severely curtailed in eliminating the backlog and building new infrastructure projects to
accelerate service delivery.

“To unlock the participation of private sector in the economy, one will have to start by appropriate planning
and design of both social and economic infrastructure. Realizing that you do not have this internal capacity
to perform this function as it is the case in South Africa, CESA which commands about 500 member firms
avails itself to assist Government,” states Makibinyane.

CESA calls for Investigation of the

Abuse of Section 32

Following complaints from member firms, CESA has noted with concern the blatant abuse of Section 32 of
the Municipal Finance Management Act and therefore calls on the Auditor General, National Treasury and
the Public Protector to investigate the deviations.

Section 32 deals with procurement of goods and service under contracts secured by other organs of
State. “Under no circumstances does the Section state that contracts secured by other organs of State are
transferrable, which may lead to the illegal by-passing of internal supply chain management processes
such as calling for tenders,” proclaims CESA CEO Lefadi Makibinyane.

He avers that CESA views this practice as irregular and says it may well lead to corruption and is to the
detriment of CESA members and the public at large. Makibinyane adds that what is happening is that
municipalities use this clause to illegally extend existing contracts that are coming to an end. “They use it
to avoid going out to tender for new projects, leaving it open to abuse as these contracts may be given to
their cronies or family members.”

He believes that as it provides a loophole for corruption this clause needs to be tightened up but in light
of the existence of Section 36, which provides for deviations from and ratification of minor breaches of
procurement processes, Section 32 is actually unnecessary.

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