The Central Procurement Board of Namibia (CPBN) yesterday launched its new corporate identity. Officiating at the occasion, Deputy Minister of Finance, Natangwe Ithete, said that for any business or organisation, a logo is the face of the company and in today’s competitive environment “a company and organisation needs to build strong, positive images and reputation in order to be distinguished from others”. 

As the keynote speaker at the unveiling of the CPBN’s new logo, Ithete added that it is important to have a good and strong corporate identity “because it increases awareness about your organisations to your clients, stakeholders and competitors alike”.  

He continued that the CPBN actually inherited a negative perception from the now dissolved tender board. “That is why we need to work harder to change the public perception through managing corporate image by open, proactive communication with both internal and external stakeholders,” said Ithete. 
Ithete also said that he is aware of resistance to the public procurement reform, namely the Public Procurement Act of 2015, which empowers the central procurement board.  

“The said resistance made it difficult to implement the Public Procurement Act, however, it is expected. As humans, we sometimes fear to challenge what we do not know. The only way to overcome the resistance is to raise more awareness of our mandate and have clear expectations from the stakeholders,” the deputy minister stated.

That, said Ithete, is why it is not enough to have a corporate logo but he admitted to it being a good start. “It is my hope that you will go an extra mile with your new corporate identity as a tool to earn public trust towards procurement in Namibia, educate our people about your mandate, keep them informed and updated on procurement activities.”

Furthermore, your employees are your first promoters hence your corporate identity should inspire a sense of pride in them, in order to attract, retain procurement experts and the best employees in the market.  Happy employees are likely to serve happily, consequently, making the clients happy too.  
In a bid to increase its efficiency, the CPBN plans to create checklists for public entities to use in preparation of bidding documents for submission. According to Ithete, this is commendable, as it will shorten the procurement process.