The Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) says procurement regulations released in early August increase the risks of political pressure, patronage and collusion in public procurement.

The regulations, gazetted on 4 August, increase the threshold for discretionary spending.

This means that public entities can run procurement for more expensive projects without going through the Central Procurement Board of Namibia.

Presenting a new report yesterday, IPPR research associate Frederico Links said the new regulations also created a new category of high-value public entities.

“High-value entities, [like state petroleum company] National Petroleum Corporation of Namibia, can now contract for works projects worth up to N$500 million. That’s an immense jump,” Links said.

He said the changes increase corruption risks considerably, given that public procurement is already “marked by a lack of transparency, rampant non-compliance, poor governance and weak oversight”.

The new regulations also revealed a hundred public entities that run their own procurement.

The list of public entities running in-house procurement expanded to 260 from 176 in recent years. It includes companies like August 26 Holding Company and its subsidiaries.

“If you look at how these companies have been operating, they should have been on this list [before]. If these were public entities that had a procurement function, why were they not on the list? Was there a parallel procurement system in which they were operating?” Links said.

“That these commercial entities now appear on the list of regulated procuring entities suggests that they have conducted their procurement in the shadows up till now,” the report says.

Source: https://www.namibian.com.na/ippr-warns-procurement-rules-raise-corruption-risks/