By: Joseph Muhozi, Iringa

Public entities have been urged to embrace integrity as the ideal weapon in fight against frequent misconducts that have bedeviled the public procurement sector for too long, TPJ has learnt.

This was the gist of the remarks made by the Public Procurement Regulatory Authority’s Director for Capacity Building and Advisory Services, Eng. Amin Mcharo in Iringa yesterday, during the official opening of user acceptance testing for the new procurement electronic system, namely National e-Procurement System of Tanzania (NeST).

Eng. Mcharo urged public entities to wholeheartedly embrace integrity in procurement dealings, saying it was the ideal weapon that could be used to stop embezzlement and corruption, which have done much to spoil the image of public procurement.

Eng. Mcharo told more than 280 participants, including accounting officers and heads of departments from procuring entities, that audit findings for various public entities show frequent misconducts from preparation of tenders to contract implementation.  

He mentioned the nature of some of the misconduct, including deliberate poorly prepared annual procurement plans, evaluation reports, and a failure to provide letter of intention to award and poor supervision of contracts.

Furthermore, Eng. Mcharo decried the reluctance of procuring entities to use procedural forms, and others who neither inform unsuccessful tenders the reasons why they did not win nor the name of the successful bidder.

“The audits reveal a poor keeping of procurement records that leads to lack of information on a tender like cost of procurement and the price, delay of payment to tenderers that lead to penalties,” said Eng. Mcharo.

“All these misdeeds are corruption red flags. Therefore, I urge you to join the war against corruption which is public enemy number one… it denies people of rights which are a foundation of the nation,” he said and called upon all stakeholders to adhere to the public procurement law in order to ensure that there is attainment of value for money for the Government in all procurement contracts.