Tender scoring and tender fraud
By Werner van Rooyen, Director of HowToTender (Pty) Ltd which specializes in tender consulting and tender training.
We are asked by many people that attend our How-to-Tender workshops if all tenders are not awarded fraudulently. Our straight and quick answer is no, not all tenders are awarded on a fraudulent manner.
The reason we are saying this is because there are just too many tenders going around in South Africa for all of it to be awarded fraudulently. If you look at the statistics it will show that there are at any given time about 3000 tenders available in South Africa – this consists of Public Sector tenders as well as Private Sector tenders. One can safely assume that most tenders are valid for 30 days (one month) before it closes and because of this it is safe to say that there are about 36000 tenders per annum floating in South Africa. It will be impossible to commit fraud on all these tenders.
There is also the drive from all Government departments and Provinces to be transparent in all their tender activities. We deal with the Public Sector daily and we experience increased transparency from most of the departments especially when it comes to awarding a tender.
The Preferential Procurement Policy Framework Act also provides the Public Sector with the Preferential Procurement Scoring system whereby bidders must score points to advance from one stage to another and to finally be awarded the tender. This scoring system should be the only way that tenders are awarded – if not then there is a problem.
If you know of any fraudulent tender activities, please be a whistle blower and report to the Tender Fraud hotline 0800 701 701.
To learn more about this and many other tender conditions attend our “Become a Tender Expert” 2-Day workshops presented in Johannesburg, Pretoria, Durban, Port Elizabeth, and Cape Town. Book and pay online at https://howtotender.co.za/tender-expert-form/
Contact us at wernervr@howtotender.co.za should you require more information.
You can also purchase a Tender Manual (Handbook) on our website https://howtotender.co.za/ which is a step by step guide how to respond to a South African Tender. It includes examples of completed SBD forms.
