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The Procurement Regulatory Authority  of Zimbabwe (PRAZ) said yesterday it was seeking increased powers to enable it to effectively monitor public procurement processes and to  also punish entities who flout tender procedures.

PRAZ (formerly the State Procurement Board) was created through an Act of Parliament in 2017 and is mandated with supervising public  procurement proceedings to ensure transparency, fairness, honesty, cost-effectiveness and competition.

PRAZ chief executive officer, Nyasha Chizu, told Parliament that  emergency procurement needs necessitated by the Covid-19 pandemic had  brought to light the need to tighten laws regulating procurement in the  country.

He said, for example, when the pandemic reached Zimbabwe, special  procurement guidelines it issued were not followed.

Among other special regulations, PRAZ directed that for orderly  procurement of Covid-19 consumables, shared procurement arrangements  needed to be adopted such that consumables, including sanitisers were  bought within the provinces rather than at a central level.

Tenders were to be published and awarded within a reduced time frame  and procuring entities were also supposed to provide PRAZ with monthly  procurement reports for audit.

“What we observed was that, initially, with respect to Covid-19, the  Ministry (of Health) was conducting procurements on their own, they did  those procurements and what we noticed is that the procurements were  being done at a central level, whereas our directive was that procurement  was supposed to be done at provincial levels,” he said.

“Regarding the circular that we issued on 27 March, there was some bit  of non-compliance on the part of procuring entities because from 27 of  March to end of April we were supposed to get first reports of what was  procured, but nothing was done and we also observed that in terms of the  laws we were a bit toothless in terms of implementation of our  directives.”

Mr Chizu said, currently, PRAZ was limited in its operations and was not  directly involved in procurement.

“According to the Act, procurement decisions are supposed to be done by  the procuring entity’s accounting officer,” he said.

“So in that regard it is very clear as to what level is PRAZ supposed  to be involved because the functions of PRAZ are mainly to set  standards, monitor and evaluate public procurement decisions. So yes we  did set the standard in terms of Covid-19 (procurement). What we  expected to be done, we did set that standard and now what we are doing  is to monitor and evaluate how that standard would have been applied.”

He added: “We have received some reports so far on these procurements. We are going to be reviewing all these procurement processes because our  job is no longer to award (tenders) but to review a process and take  corrective action.

“So to that effect we also have done something, we have developed  compliance monitoring and evaluation regulations that have got some  penalties for someone who would not have complied to directives. Yes, it  is a fact that right now we are only writing letters to request for  reports so that we can review them, but as to specific action that we  can do if someone does not comply right now we do not have until our  regulations have been published. They are now with the Attorney-General,” he said. – New Ziana