The Ministry of Agriculture has been caught in violation of the Public Procurement Act –PPA, No. 8 of 2020, which mandates the use of the electronic government procurement system (e-GP) for all public procurement entities, in a bid to promote transparency and accountability. The Ministry has on the contrary issued public tenders manually, defying the law and the spirit of its provisions.
According to two tender adverts from the Ministry of Agriculture seen by the Zambian Business Times -ZBT, interested bidders are being asked to deposit their submissions in the bid box, which is not a transparent way of making submissions.
This has raised concerns about the fairness and impartiality of the tender process, and the possibility of corruption and favoritism.
The Ministry has invited citizen and local bidders for consultancy services for the development of the national irrigation policy and consultancy services for the construction of feeder roads in Luapula and Central provinces. However, in both tender adverts, bidders were instructed to deposit their submissions in the bid box at the Ministry, which is a clear violation of the law.
Speaking in an exclusive interview with the Zambian Business Times – ZBT, Ministry of Agriculture Secretary – Procurement Committee, Anon Madima confirmed that all public tenders are supposed to be done electronically but failed to give a clear justification as to why the ministry has gone ahead to issue 2 public tenders manually.
Madima also dodged the question of whether the ministry got ZPPA authorization to issue a manual tender and justified that the manual tender is meant for people who are not on the EGP system.
” Yes all tenders are supposed to be done electronically but you are going to notice that even when a tender is done on the EGP, there’s also a manual tender that is done and the Ministry of Agriculture is not the first Ministry to issue a manual tender but submission will be done on the EGP,” he said.
“Submissions of expressions of interest have also been put on paper to let people know because it’s not everyone who is on the EGP system. Let’s do this, I’m in the middle of something. Call me in the afternoon,” said Madima.
Officials from the Zambia Public Procurement Authority (ZPPA) have also failed to confirm whether the Ministry got authorization from the authority to issue the manual tenders. The source noted that although the use of the EGP system is mandatory, there have been cases where some public entities failed to publish public tenders on the EGP system.
The sources further added that by May 2024, all procurement entities will be required to use the EGP system
“Sometimes procurement entities do request for a waiver not to use the egp system but I will have to find out whether it was done. I will have to check the records to see what was written and if the Ministry wrote to ZPPA,” the source said.
“There have been some tenders that have been advertised manually although the use of the EGP system is mandatory There’ve been cases where some tenders are not published using the EGP system but come May 2024, all procurement entities will use the EGP system because that is what the law provides. The nonuse of the EGP system should only be for some procurement entities that do not have the infrastructure needed for the EGP system but by May 2024 all procurement entities will have to use the EGP system including all districts in far flung areas,” revealed the source.
