An empirical investigation into the tendering and procurement processes at the Mafikeng municipality in North West province
Abstract
Procurement, as a socio-economic policy in the current South African context, entails
the addressing of the imbalances of the past, empowering disadvantaged communities,
income generation, educating of the illiterate. In essence, the policy provides for the
preference to be given to targeted categories of people, without exclusion of anyone
from the opportunity to tendering this study an evaluation of tendering and procuring
procedures in Mafikeng Local Municipality of the North West Province was conducted
as there was no review done since 2005. Different literature was reviewed to find out
what other researchers state about the related problem. It was found that tendering and
procuring had an adverse effect in any business, in the best way to do it was to
formulate and implement some guidelines, procedure and monitor them on a monthly
base. Information was collected by distributing questionnaires to different employees of
Mafikeng Local Municipality. The questionnaires were aimed at identifying important
procedures of tendering and procuring, identifying different types of business and
finding if employers and employees are informed about the tendering and procurement
processes .. The findings indicate that almost all respondents 39 (91 %) agree on the
value of the size of the company in the tendering and procurement process. According
to the results, 40 (93%) agree that Small, Medium and Micro Enterprise cater for
tendering and procurement in all aspects of supply chain management. In Mafikeng
Local Municipality, Small, Medium and Micro Enterprise get preference to cater in all
goods and services as compared to other enterprises. However, it was not clear for the
respondents whether this preference given to Small, Medium MMEs addressed all
problems related to unemployment, black economic and women empowerment. The
majority (95%) do not think the tendering process is transparent. The transparency
problem is a common challenge among municipalities and Mafikeng is not an exception.