Parliament undecided on extending public submissions for Public Procurement Bill

Parliament says it is unable to confirm whether it is going to give more time for further public submissions to be allowed over the process currently conducted on the Public Procurement Bill.

The set current deadline on the legislative public consultation is the 13^th of September.

The bill was tabled in Parliament by Minister of Finance Enoch Godongwana this year after a formal approval by the Cabinet.

The major objective of the envisaged piece of legislation is to regulate public procurement in this country by providing a prescribed legislative framework to give guidance on the implementation of the preferential procurement.

Chairperson of the Standing Committee on Finance, Joe Maswanganyi, was unable to give an exact answer on the issue of the possible extension for the public submissions.

In accordance to Section 217 of the Constitution, South Africa’s procurement system must be fair, competitive, transparent, equitable and cost-effective.

It is yet to be seen whether the 2016 Public Procurement Bill will be effective in minimising corruption and billions of rands of wastage of public resources, as it is still to be passed.

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