Madam Speaker,

The MEC and the Department has been crowing about the open tender system for some time. However, if one tries to ascertain where and when the next tender adjudication is to be then you will struggle. It is not on the Treasury website.

Even calling people in the MEC’s office doesn’t help. It appears that our staff have closed their ears to requests for information regarding an open tender adjudication.

You see, if I look at the Provincial Treasury website under “Open Tender”, I get a list of tenders, the latest being December 2015.

This is after a google search for “Gauteng tender adjudication”, which produces a list where the top story is from 2 April 2015, two years ago, saying “First Gauteng tender decided in public” and the second link is Treasury’s website.

There’s even a story from 25 August last year from EWN where MEC Creecy bragged that, “Gauteng is the only government in the world implementing open tender system”.

However, it is possible via Gauteng Online, to access a Services menu, where there is an option called, “Tenders”. Here you will find a tab for “Open tenders”. I was hopeful that I could get a date for the next open tender adjudication date there but I was to be disappointed. Of the 12 provincial listed there, including an interesting one called, “Emfuleni Local Municipality”, the documents mostly indicated that the tenders had all be adjudicated, the vast majority in 2016. Not one of departments showed an open adjudication process that would be happening any time in the future. The most recent adjudication was on 25 April 2017 this year for the “Supply of Bread and Rolls”.

So I ask you MEC, please can you assist. Can you please tell me where and when the next public tender adjudication will be and how can I find out for myself in the future?
Or, must I assume that the only open tender system in the world is now closed?

Another disappointment in the Treasury’s stable is GIFA. At least we seem to have gone past the scenario where we would be presented quarter after quarter of the status of 14 projects, not always the same project and virtually all of which struggled to get past feasibility and the appointment of a transaction advisor, even. Wonder of wonders, they can now report on 23 projects! Of which a massive number of 4 projects are at preferred bidder stage.

But my true disappointment is that when I look at the PPP website of National Treasury, there are only 3 projects have been registered under Gauteng and these all seem to have been abandoned.

I encourage Members to view the World Bank’s website for PPPs. You will see hundreds of infrastructure projects being done in emerging economies, with great success. I regret we are missing huge opportunities here in our province.