President Emmerson will on Wednesday officially launch the State Procurement Regulatory Authority of Zimbabwe (PRAZ) as government moves to sanitize the public procurement process.
PRAZ board came into existence last year replacing the State Procurement Board (SPB). This meant that the awarding of tenders will now be done by accounting officers in various State departments and companies, with the PRAZ only playing a supervisory and monitoring role to ensure government entities comply with the new Public Procurement and Disposal of Public Assets Act
PRAZ chief executive officer, Nyasha Chizu said the launch of the board shows the seriousness of Mnangagwa’s government in bringing reforms to the country in the so-called Second Republic.
“Unlike other reforms that are happening, not all are being done to enact into law but with the PRAZ, it is a Public Procurement and Disposal of Public Assets Act repealed the Procurement Act.
“So we have a new paradigm in terms of public procurement where we have the PRAZ responsible for setting standards, monitoring and evaluation of public procurements.
“Unlike the old scenario where we had the state procurement board being the agent of the government in public procurement, this is a new institution that the President will launch on Wednesday,” said Chizu.
He noted that Mnangagwa’s second republic is all about service delivery and transparency, hence PRAZ will bring that to the table.
He said since its inception on 1 January 2018; “PRAZ has managed to capacitate all procurement entities to enable them to understand the dictates of doing business under the new law.”
Zimbabwe has in the past been faced with lack of transparency in public procurement with skeptics citing a lack of political will in averting the challenge.
Calls have been made for the government to deal decisively with public procurement practitioners found guilty of flouting procurement procedures as this may go a long way to restore confidence in the public sector and help woo investors.
