36% MDAs defy procurement law
Thirty six percent of government ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) have failed to submit their 2023/24 financial year procurement plans, effectively flouting the Public Procurement and Disposal of Public Assets Authority (PPDA) Act.
Disclosing this at a media conference in Lilongwe on Thursday, PPDA, however, said that this is an improvement from the previous financial year when non-compliance was recorded at 55 percent.
Submission of Procurement Plans by Procuring and Disposing Entities (PDEs) is stipulated in Section 39 of the PPDA Act.
Said PPDA director general Edington Chilapondwa: “Procurement and disposal plans from the PDEs form part of the data the authority uses to monitor public procurement and disposal of assets processes.”
Chilapondwa said they are pushing the MDAs to be compliant with the requirement for procurement plans submission as it is a plausible way to control expenditure outside the budget.
“No procurement is supposed to be done without a plan. The law does not allow that,” he said.
The director general attributed the non-compliance to lack of trained procurement officers in the MDAs, a situation they are trying to reverse.
“The issue is about capacity. You have taken a human resource personnel and you ask them to be the procurement officer. What do you expect?” he quizzed.
Meanwhile, Chilapondwa has said controlling officers in MDAs are being fined for non-compliance.
He stated: “We have issued to all non-compliance controlling officers and we have charged them and some are complying.
“We are not very much concerned with punishment. We are interested in their reports,” he stated.
In his reaction, procurement analyst Arnold Chirwa observed that the non-compliance was a result of failure to adequately enforce regulations that seek to punish perpetrators.
“Even though the law may provide for punishment for non-compliance, some officers just choose not to adhere because they know that they will not be punished. We need to do better on enforcement,” the former PPDA chief said.
He, however, was quick to hail the progress made in procurement plans submissions, pointing out that during his reign the compliance rate was at 20 percent.
On its part, the Public Accounts Committee of Parliament has described the compliance rate as not good enough.
Committee chairperson Mark Botomani said in a written response to our questionnaire: “Our position is that any established law is meant to be complied with in full, hence the 64 percent compliance by the MDAs in this context is not good enough.
“We expect controlling officers to be serious with regard to enforcement of laws such as the PPDA Act. Matter of procurement are very crucial given the fact that most public resources are lost through procurement.”
