The Sunday News
Judith Phiri, Business Reporter
THE Procurement Regulatory Authority of Zimbabwe (PRAZ) says it is going to review its regulations in 2021 as it moves to fully support Small to Medium Enterprises (SMEs), in line with the attainment of Vision 2030.
In an interview, PRAZ acting chief executive officer Mr Clever Ruswa said as a way of stimulating economic growth they were going to review their regulations to include small and medium business ventures.
“This time around we really want to make sure that we stimulate economic growth in the country by promoting SMEs. In 2021 we are going to review our regulations so that in terms of domestic preferences we make sure that the bigger chunk of the money goes to our SMEs,” said Mr Ruswa.
He said in line with Vision 2030 PRAZ was closing the TSP period in 2020 and for 2021 they were starting their new programmes in line with the National Development Strategy (NDS1).
Mr Ruswa added: “We had our strategy sessions in November to finalise our strategy for 2021. The board has since approved the principal’s draft what we are now doing is to align with the NDS1.”
He also noted that for next year they were aiming at capacity building and building communities as their mandate was not only of procurement of entities.
He said they would assist those with tenders above board and competent business people to do those tenders so that the nation could benefit in terms of getting quality goods and services.
PRAZ Capacity Building Division has been conducting trainings for bidders in order for them to appreciate the Public Procurement and Disposal of Public Assets Act [Chapter, 22:23].
Mr Ruswa also highlighted that the authority needs to capacitate entities to make sure they get value for money in whatever they were doing. As a regulator he said they needed to see that the procure management unit is headed by people who are qualified to administrator such funds.
PRAZ regulates 345 State entities and Government institutions.
In line with the realisation of Vision 2030, NDS1 states that in order to enhance public service delivery during the Strategy Period, Government will implement strengthening enforcement of procurement legislation through PRAZ.
The Government is also making amendments to the country’s public sector procurement law to streamline bottlenecks identified over the past two years. The amendments are also meant to strengthen the screening criteria to minimise the number of people or entities getting away with big projects yet without capacity.
PRAZ formally, the State Procurement Board (SPB) was created through an Act of Parliament, Public Procurement and Disposal of Public Assets Act [Cap 22:23] which repealed the Act, No. 2/99 [Cap. 22:14] through S.I. 152 of December 2017. The authority’s mandate is of supervising public procurement proceedings to ensure transparency, fairness, honesty, cost-effectiveness and competition as required by Section 315 of the Zimbabwean Constitution.
