EDITORIAL
Namibia disbanded its tender board in 2017.
The Tender Board of Namibia was replaced by the Central Procurement Board of Namibia (CPBN) to address widespread public concern over corruption and lack of transparency in the country’s public procurement system.
A key concern about the Tender Board was its failure to address concerns to do with possible corruption, bid fixing and a lack of independence.
It was mostly composed of senior civil servants.
This did not auger well for those that felt it created millionaires out of the same faces year in year out.
The then tender board was responsible for creating what became known as tenderpreneurs.
Ushering in an era where lucky tenderpreneurs would hand out cash like confetti and acquire top of the range engines.
That model failed to create entrepreneurs who could create jobs rather it birthed a class of show-offs, many of whom failed to complete government projects successfully tendered to them.
There are obvious names that come to mind when this era is mentioned but this is neither the time nor platform for such.
One thought the nation had learned a hard lesson from running a public procurement system that could not satisfy the dictates of public trust.
Namibia has made quite some progress since the introduction of the central procurement board.
This board is much stricter and better managed. It has reasonably met the expectations of fairness, goodness and maintained public trust in the public procurement system.
Of course, like any other system and process it has faced its fair share of challenges.
Chief among these are the constant challenges of certain tenders in the courts, delaying project implementation and sometimes escalating cost of these projects.
However, one would agree these are much better challenges than those faced in the era of the Tender Board.
We should be building towards doing better and getting better.
However, we are regressing.
If we plan to introduce more ministerial exemptions, Namibia takes five steps forward and three steps back.
It is understandable that there are projects that have national interest and economic impetus but their tenders can surely still be allocated through a trustworthy procurement process.
If Namibia goes ahead with many ministerial exemptions we might end up creating excess power in the hands of individuals and compromising accountability and transparency in the process.
We need to better the systems and ways of doing business but even that cannot come at the expense of accountability, honesty and a trusted procurement system.
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