Namibia’s public entities procured goods and services worth over N$4 billion for the six months, January to June 2021, latest figures from the Central Procurement Board of Namibia (CPBN) show.
The amount is more than the N$3.9 billion awarded to the public entities in the entire 2020/21 financial year and N$3.7 billion awarded in the 2019/20 financial year.
Goods and Services procured through Direct Procurement, Entity to Entity and Emergency Procurement stood at N$3.5 billion for six months to June, with those procured under Competitive Bidding coming in at N$460 million.
Contract extensions, price increases, variations worth N$85.5 million were approved by the CPBN during the first six months of the year, with N$956 million approved for the entire 2020/21 financial year.
Of the total value of awards made for the period March-June 2021, 33% of procurement contracts were awarded to Namibians while 67% were awarded to non-Namibians, compared 100% of the awards for the 2020/21 financial year being awarded to locals.
The CPBN is currently facing eight challenges over its awards, a position which it said does not affect its credibility.
“The review applications have no impact on the credibility of CPBN because the PPA makes provision for aggrieved bidders to lodge their applications for reconsideration with CPBN or the Review Panel. CPBN operates within the ambit of the PPA by adjudicating its bids in a transparent manner and through its notices and decisions. This is done by affording aggrieved bidders opportunities to challenge its decisions and actions either through a reconsideration procedure or at the Review Panel,” said CPBN Marketing and Stakeholders Engagement Specialist Johanna Kambala.
Quizzed on the review of the current structure of the CPBN, Kambala said, “In terms of the Public Procurement Act (PPA) of 2015 (Act No.15 of 2015) the Board of CPBN is appointed by the Minister of Finance. Hence the organization has no power in changing its governance structure. However, the PPA is currently being reviewed by the Minister of Finance and one of the proposed amendments is to separate the dual roles of the Chairperson and Deputy Chairperson respectively and who currently serve as Administrative ad Deputy Administrative Head.”
The Central Procurement Board came into existence in 2017, through the Public Procurement Act of 2015.
According to the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR), the majority of ministries and government agencies are still struggling to fully comply with the requirements of the Public Procurement Act.
