The theory and practice of procurement systems and affirmative procurement policy

Abstract

A preliminary review of the existing public sector delivery towards sustainable employment and human resource development shows that the nature of contract awards in South Africa tends to favour more established and large enterprises. There was a need to transform the public sector procurement to respond to the changing needs of the new era in South Africa. The emergence of the affirmative procurement policy, has found a procurement environment, which does not seem to have the ability of taking the thrust of the affirmative procurement policy. Therefore there is a need to establish a system, which will provide a procurement regime, which will meet the objectives of the affirmative procurement policy. The purpose of this study is to look at the impact of the implementation of affirmative procurement policy in pre-tender stage on affirmable business enterprises within the state tender board procedures in South Africa. Implementation requires deliberate identification and removing of the structural and behavioural obstructions to change. The evidence emanating from the data obtained in the preface of the dissertation indicates very strongly that there is gap between the procurement rules of the state tender board and the developmental policies of the public sector. These findings raised concerns about the process of implementation whether will it benefit and also serve the purpose to the stakeholders such as targeted groups and small medium and micro enterprises.