Rudolf Gaiseb
Out of over 173 State-owned enterprises (SOEs), only 42 submitted their procurement plans to the Public Procurement Unit for the 2025/26 financial year, a report has revealed.
Of the 42, only five were made on time.
These statistics were revealed by the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) yesterday.
The institute raised concerns that public access to annual procurement plans remains a major compliance issue in the public procurement system.
They highlighted that delayed or non-publicly accessible plans can impede oversight and result in inefficient resources’ allocation.
The revelations come at a time when the National Council is currently reviewing the Public Procurement Amendment Bill of 2025.
It is additionally a time when the public enterprises’ ministry was dissolved.
Research associate at the IPPR Frederico Links said given the low capacity and resources’ constraints in the judicial system, the dispute resolution court will only add to the mayhem.
This includes procurement delays, bottlenecks, and undermining service delivery.
Presently, all parastatals resort under their parent ministries, unlike in the past when commercial SOEs were under the control of the public enterprises’ ministry.
The creation of a procurement court adds another level to the dispute resolution framework within the public procurement system.
“The fact that the litigants have to exhaust all other complaint and dispute adjudication mechanisms stipulated in the procurement law before approaching the procurement court suggests that the court could become a bottleneck. This could easily become clogged if cases are not cleared within prescribed timeframes.
The very existence of the court could contribute to the lodging of more cases by aggrieved parties, further weighing down an already heavily-burdened High Court case management system. Expert judges in public procurement law could be decisive in enabling faster dispute resolution. On the other hand, in jurisdictions where there are no or few expert judges, the court could just become an additional hindrance and delay point,” he stated.
The court, which will be functioning under the High Court, was proposed by the former minister of finance and public enterprises Iipumbu Shiimi earlier this year.
At the time, he said the amendments proposed in this Bill are driven by the urgency to strengthen accountability and expedite the resolution of disputes to enhance transparency, efficiency and fairness within the public procurement system in Namibia.
“Challenges and disputes arising from public procurement processes experience protracted resolution, potentially hindering essential service delivery and discouraging fair competition,” the former minister said in March.
He noted that prolonged legal challenges in the procurement of essential goods such as pharmaceuticals, clinical supplies and foodstuffs for hostel schools lead to recurring emergency procurements.
“This practice results in significant cost escalations for the government, and diminishes competitive bidding. This amendment addresses these challenges by creating a specialised court within the High Court, equipped to efficiently adjudicate matters related to public procurement,” Shiimi stated at the time.
The 2025-2030 Swapo Manifesto Implementation Plan (SMIP) identified the establishment of a court to handle public procurement-related cases as one of the priority areas.
“The procurement plan for SMIP underpins the importance of swift approval of all procurement contracts. For this reason, the SMIP projects will see a procurement system functioning within the boundary of Namibian law, while expediting all necessary approvals,” it reads.
It adds that all lead implementing agents (government ministries) must seek exemption from the Procurement Act.
“The minister of finance may, for a specified or unspecified period, issue a general or specific exemption from the application of certain provisions that are not practical or appropriate for the procurement, letting, hiring or disposal of security-related goods, works, services and property,” it continues.
The implementation of SMIP will require such exemptions for the speedy approval of the appointment of the project professional team and contractors to work on the implementation of SMIP.
“The exemptions can be applied when certain provisions of the Act are not practical or appropriate for the procurement. In the application of the exemption, the SMIP Lead Implementing Agent will request for sub-implementing SOEs to be permitted to undertake direct procurement permissible under sections (36) (29) (30) (31) (32) of the Procurement Act of 2015.
“All the lead implementing agents are expected to submit the application for exemption with a procurement plan for approval,” the implementation strategy adds.
Concern
The IPPR is concerned that the widespread use of exemptions in public procurement may be an enabler of corruption within the system.
“Billions in public money, tender exemptions, money up front, performance guarantees from the Development Bank of Namibia – this all sounds like a recipe for a feeding frenzy by the politically well-connected,” Links asserted.
He said access to data is important to identify bottlenecks, shortcomings and the feasibility of the procurement court.
“You cannot legislate with one amendment, like this is your way out of the dysfunctionalities that are there,” Links reasoned.
Adding his voice to the discourse in the National Council, Rundu Rural constituency councillor Paulus Mbangu said the procurement court only addresses one problem – expediting disputes – and not all the issues within the system.
“The amendment itself is a piece. It is supposed to be done holistically to address all those other shortcomings,” he advised.
“Now, it is already too late. What we can do is that, maybe in the future, the whole Procurement Act must just be reviewed, and it must be amended. Practically, it becomes a challenge, especially at the regional council level.
There is just a lot of bureaucracy in procurement, and it is not helping us. The procurement process needs to be expedited. That can only be done if there is a proper amendment within the Procurement Act. This current amendment does not address that,” Mbangu stated.