Gauteng takes transparency to new heights
The Gauteng Government today became the first provincial government to adjudicate its banking tender in public.
The Bid Adjudication Committee meeting convened at the Gauteng Provincial Legislature today recommended a preferred bank to manage the province’s R90-billion central banking services tender.
The adjudication committee meeting was attended by representatives of the four competing banks, the Finance Portfolio Committee and members of the public. Finance MEC Barbara Creecy was also in attendance to observe proceedings.
The BAC received a report from the Bid Evaluation Committee and considered their recommendation. This is in line with public sector procurement processes.
After extensive discussions, the BAC voted to endorse a recommended bank as the preferred service provider to manage the provincial government’s account. This recommendation, together with the report of an independent probity team, will now be forwarded to the Head of the Department of the Gauteng Provincial Treasury Ms Nomfundo Tshabalala for a final decision on awarding the contract.
The banking tender is second of the two open tender pilot projects. The first project was the upgrading of the Cedar Road; that contract has been awarded; thus contract has been awarded and construction has begun. According the provisions made by the National Treasury there are only four major banks that have been approved as clearing banks for the purposes of opening bank accounts with the provincial governments. Therefore, only those banks were eligible to submit their bids for this tender.
In welcoming the adjudication process, MEC Creecy explained to the media present that based on the lessons learned from these pilot projects, Gauteng Treasury will develop a plan to rollout the open tender process across GPG. “In line with the commitments made by the Premier David Makhura in the State of the Province Address, we are targeting to prioritise projects above R50-million for open tender adjudication in the current financial year. We believe this will go a long way towards restoring public confidence in the government procurement system,” she said.
The winning bank would need to manage all the banking transactions including the payment of salaries of 200 000 officials and supplier payments of about R3-billion rand per month.
The winning bank needed to demonstrate competence to meet the complex corporate and commercial banking requirements of the Gauteng Provincial Government (GPG). These include, among other things:
- Complete centralised GPG portfolio consisting of about 232 bank accounts, about 151 petty cash books, eight trading accounts;
- Ability to handle very large transaction volumes, consisting of nearly R3 billion salaries per month end;
- Efficient and cost effective current accounts administration;
- Ongoing electronic banking and systems training to support GPG officials in the effective management of such systems;
- Internal Controls that will prevent and detect any fraud to GPG;
- Appropriate skills training and development of GPG officials in all spheres of financial services as required by the GPG at no cost to the GPG;
- Processes to identify and deal with uncleared/unidentified transactions reflected in both the Exchequer and Pay Master General Accounts to minimise the accumulation of un-cleared items
MEC Creecy said government will build a sustainable relationship with the winning bidder in order to realise its broader objectives of radical transformation, modernisation and reindustrialisation.
“As part of their social responsibility, we expect the winning bidder to work with us in supporting the development of the Gauteng City Region. The successful bidder will also work with us to increase the financial literacy of our employees and invest in community programmes to improve the living conditions of our people,” MEC Creecy said.
The Open Tender Pilot project was launched in November last year to improve transparency in the award of contracts in line with supply chain management provisions of the Public Finance Management Act (PFMA).
Enquiries:
John Sukazi
Cell: 083 772 4885
E-mail: John.Sukazi@gauteng.gov.za
