The effect government supply chain processes have on the procurement of COVID-19 personal protective equipment

Abstract

There are callsby Non-Governmental and Community Based Organizations, among others for the South African government to stop the procurement of goods and services through the public supply chain system all together because it is laden with corruption.Public procurement related corruption is now considered a norm in South Africa and the biggest pervasion in the democratic state as revealed by the State Capture Commission and in various annual Auditor General
reports. The emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020 has exposed procurement irregularities as perhaps South Africa’s biggest governance challenge since 1994. An estimated R500 billion Covid-19 budget allocation is alleged to have been whipped away in just three months in tender fraud schemes to members of the ruling African National Congress and senior government administrators, their family members and even diseased members of the public. The Covid-19 related tendering system has been viewed as an opportunity to maximize personal wealth by inflating prices andengaging in kickbacks schemes between businesses and government officialsresulting inthe supply of poor-qualitygoods and services and in some instance no service at all. The aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic was depleted state coffers forcing the South African government to large international borrowing for the first time since 1994 from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the New Development Bank (BRICS Bank). As at December 2020 government debt is projected to have escalated to 80% of the GDP at nearly R4,5 trillion. This paper analyses the social and economic “missed opportunities” due to the public tendering system and the associated corruption with implications ongovernment insourcing, potential public sector employment opportunities, support for entrepreneurship, and sustenance of a government surplus.The paper is desktop research-based and analyses secondary data from newspaper report and articles, among other sources