South Africa has taken an important step towards improving public procurement through the establishment of the Public Procurement Office under the Public Procurement Act, 2024. The intent of the legislation is commendable: to promote fairness, transparency, competitiveness, cost-effectiveness and uniformity in public procurement. However, for thousands of professional service providers who interact with government procurement systems daily, the reality remains frustratingly inconsistent. By Engineer Likhaya Nkonki.
The challenge is no longer the absence of legislation. The challenge is implementation.
One of the primary objectives of the new procurement framework is the standardisation of procurement practices across procuring institutions. Yet suppliers continue to encounter vastly different requirements from one institution to another. Despite being registered on the Central Supplier Database (CSD), many companies are still required to submit copies of identity documents, tax clearance certificates and other information that government already possesses.
This duplication creates unnecessary administrative burdens and raises important questions about information governance and privacy. Why should businesses repeatedly submit the same documentation to dozens of government entities when a centralised verification system already exists?
The situation becomes even more frustrating for professional service providers in the engineering and built environment sector. Engineering, architectural and other consulting firms are routinely required to submit client reference letters to prove competence. Yet every procuring institution seems to have its own format and template.
The information requested is largely the same. Why not have a nationally standardised reference system accepted by all public institutions?
Even more concerning is the growing tendency to require that these references relate only to projects completed within the last five or ten years. Such requirements ignore an important reality: professional experience does not suddenly become irrelevant because of age. A bridge designed fifteen years ago remains a demonstration of engineering competence today, just as the institutional knowledge gained from delivering that project remains valuable.
If experience can be arbitrarily discounted after a decade, what message does that send about accumulated expertise?
Another area requiring urgent attention is the interpretation of “cost-effectiveness” when procuring professional services. Too often, procuring institutions equate cost-effectiveness with the lowest price. This may be suitable when purchasing standardised goods, but it is highly problematic when procuring intellectual and professional services.
Engineering designs, project management and technical advisory services are not commodities. They are professional outputs that directly affect public safety, infrastructure quality and service delivery outcomes.
When consulting engineering fees are driven far below professional guideline levels, corners are inevitably cut. The consequences can be severe: defective infrastructure, escalating maintenance costs, delayed & incomplete project delays and, in extreme cases, failure of critical public assets. South Africans have witnessed the consequences of infrastructure failures in water systems, transport networks and public facilities. The real cost of cheap professional services is often paid later by taxpayers.
Government therefore needs clear guidance on how cost-effectiveness should be evaluated when procuring professional services. The cheapest bid is not always the best value.
The excessive documentation requirements imposed on bidders also deserves review. Many procuring institutions continue to demand annual financial statements from every bidder, even during the initial stages of evaluation. Yet these documents contain sensitive commercial information and often end up circulating through multiple offices and committees.
A more practical approach would be to request such information only from shortlisted bidders or preferred candidates. This would reduce administrative burdens while still allowing institutions to perform appropriate due diligence.
The engineering profession faces another challenge: inconsistent treatment of qualifications and professional registrations.
There is a growing trend among some procuring institutions to allocate significantly higher points to Bachelor of Engineering graduates than to Bachelor of Engineering Technology graduates, despite both qualifications being recognised within the engineering profession and occupying adjacent levels on the National Qualifications Framework.
Similarly, many tenders specify Professional Engineer (Pr Eng) registration while excluding Professional Engineering Technologists (Pr Tech Eng) altogether.
This approach raises legitimate concerns. South Africa’s engineering regulatory framework recognises multiple professional registration categories, each with defined competencies and scopes of practice. Blanket exclusions may unnecessarily limit competition, reduce transformation opportunities and prevent qualified professionals from participating in public-sector projects.
Where a specific registration category is genuinely necessary because of project complexity or risk, the justification should be clear, objective and aligned with guidance from the Engineering Council of South Africa (ECSA). Procurement specifications should not become barriers that exclude competent professionals without valid technical reasons.
The ownership structures of professional service firms also deserve discussion. Some procuring institutions require that a prescribed percentage of a company be owned by professionals from a particular discipline. While the intention may be to strengthen professional accountability, such requirements often disadvantage multidisciplinary firms that bring together expertise across different sectors.
A more balanced approach would focus on ensuring that professional firms have qualified and accountable professionals in leadership and ownership positions, rather than imposing rigid ownership formulas that fail to reflect the reality of modern professional practice.
Indeed, there is merit in considering whether built environment firms should, like law firms, be substantially owned and led by registered professionals. Such a model could strengthen accountability, reduce fronting and ensure that technical decision-making remains in the hands of appropriately qualified practitioners.
The Public Procurement Act presents a unique opportunity to modernise how government procures professional services. But reform will not be measured by legislation alone. It will be measured by whether procurement processes become simpler, more consistent, more transparent and more supportive of quality outcomes.
South Africa does not have a procurement legislation problem. It has a procurement implementation problem.
The newly established Public Procurement Office has an opportunity to address these concerns and build a procurement system that values competence, quality, fairness and public service delivery above bureaucracy. However, lasting reform will require collaboration across the entire built environment sector.
National Treasury, the cidb, SABTACO, CESA, ECSA, public institutions and professional service providers must work together to create a procurement environment that supports excellence, transformation, innovation and accountability. South Africa’s infrastructure ambitions cannot be realised without a healthy consulting engineering sector and a procurement system that enables professionals to deliver their best work in the public interest. The country cannot afford anything less.
