Public Procurement Unpacked

Corruption Watch

When you hear the word “procurement” do your eyes glaze over? Why should we care about it? In fact, public procurement – the process by which a government contracts for goods, service and infrastructure for the good of all society – is at the heart of the fight against corruption. For decades now, South Africa’s public procurement system has been deeply dysfunctional and relentlessly abused, costing the country billions of rands and depriving citizens of the goods and services to which they are constitutionally entitled. In this episode we unpack why this is, and what can be done about it. Through conversation with Karam Singh, Executive-Director of Corruption Watch (CW); Mmaphefo Seseni, CW’s data analyst; and Prof Geo Quinot, head of the African Procurement Law Unit and a professor of Public Law at Stellenbosch University, we learn about CW’s Procurement Watch (PW) tool which was developed in response to this dysfunction.