By Joseph Muhozi, Dodoma

The Public Procurement Regulatory Authority (PPRA) has identified community development officers as key players in enabling special groups take up procurement opportunities that are presented by the preference scheme enshrined in the public procurement law, TPJ can report.

This came to light when the PPRA Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Eliakim Maswi, addressed community development officers who were meeting at a retreat in Dodoma recently.

Mr. Maswi told the officers that after PPRA had conducted a special campaign to sensitize the wananchi on procurement opportunities provided through the preference scheme for special groups, it became apparent that community development officers were in fact key players as their involvement was crucial in the necessary first step, namely registration of those groups.

However, Mr. Maswi expressed concern that the campaign, which was conducted in Rukwa, Tabora, Mwanza, Dodoma, Arusha, Mtwara and Manyara regions, also revealed that most of community development officers were not aware of the available opportunities and as a result they tended to carry out the registration with unnecessary bureaucracy and reluctance even, thereby hampering the Government’s objectives.

“The experience of the public awareness campaign shows that there are unnecessary bureaucracy and deliberate reluctance by some of the community development officers, which pose as a barrier of registration,” he said and urged the officers to improve their ways, including their interaction with procuring entities.  

“When we visited the [regions] we found that there is very little cooperation between you and the procuring entities and this has made you unaware of the 9 trillion shillings set aside by the Government for special groups this year,” said Mr. Maswi.

He also expressed a wish that there would soon be a boost in the number of registered special groups in the country saying, “as of now the PPRA list has only 195 special groups …which are too few given the country’s population.”

The PPRA chief went on to urge community development officers to emulate their regional commissioners and administrative secretaries and others, who did much in supporting the campaign towards creating employment opportunities, thereby helping to improve the living standards of wananchi through public procurement.

 “Together, with the relevant ministry, we can always find a solution for [any] unfavorable environment for the registration of these groups,” he said, adding that it was imperative that everyone involved made an effort to enable them win part of the 9 trillion shillings set aside by the Government for them this year.

The public procurement law requires every procuring entity to set aside 30 percent of its annual volume of procurement for special groups, namely youth, women, the elderly and people with physical disabilities.