PPDA training firms to better procurement

By Billy Rwothungeyo

Flaws originating from ignorance of procurement laws and procedures are hurting service delivery, even with the great strides procurement has realised over the past years.

From 1964 when public procurement was centralised under the works and public service ministry, to the era of the Public Procurement and Disposal of Public Assets Authority (PPDA) Act, 2003, procurement has come a long way.

But service delivery is being hampered as both bidders and procuring and disposal units (PDU) grapple with many challenges because of inadequate knowledge.

Paddy Ssekitto, a procurement expert, says in his experience, many bidders concentrate on one or a few aspects of a bid.

“Many bidders lose out because they concentrate on their financial bids and forget other elements such as trading licenses and tax identification numbers (TIN),” he says.

Proper communication between bidders and PDUs is largely lacking, he says.

“Some bidders take procurement business too casually. They want to communicate important information over the phone. This kind of communication is supposed to be in writing,” says Ssekitto.

He calls upon PPDA to intensify their sensitisation drives for bidders to get their act in order. Ssekitto particularly urges the authority to work closely with other stakeholders in this kind of sensitisation.

The staggering levels of corruption in Uganda have tilted the way bidders approach contract committee members, Sssekitto notes.

“There are people who believe they can never win a bid without a bribe,” he says.

Many participants at the PPDA symposium in September partly attributed the alarming levels of ignorance to the fact that bidders are so money oriented to even bother reading basic procurement laws.

F. X. Mubuuke, the executive secretary of the Uganda National Association of Building and Civil Engineering Contractors says such naivety often spills over to the execution of the contract.

“When some of the bidders win contracts and get advance payments, they rush to buy expensive cars and marry second wives before starting the work,” Mubuuke notes.

PPDA trains entities

As part of the initiative to address the challenges, PPDA has embarked on countrywide training sessions.

The last two weeks have seen the regulatory body traverse the districts of Kisoro, Kabale, Rukungiri and Jinja.

In these sessions, PPDA has trained leaders on contract management.

Many contracts have been poorly executed because of the failure to appoint managers to oversee them. The regulator also noted that often shoddy work is a result of poor supervision.

Moses Ojambo, the PPDA’s manager of training and capacity building explained that the size of the procuring and disposal entity (PDE) and its requirement determine the muscle of contract management.

“Where high value or complex contracts are concerned, the PDE may have a contract management team other than an individual,” he said.

Alongside poor contract management, the lack of understanding for procedures is also a major hindrance to service delivery.

Businesses interested in doing business with government entities were trained on how to handle bid documents. PPDA discovered that bidders paid for bidding documents before even seeing their contents, yet the law permits them to view such documents before paying for them.

Politicians, who are notorious for interfering with the work of entities, were also given the opportunity to attend the training sessions.