🛡️Why monitoring the procurement process is important

While the laws and regulations that govern the public sector procurement process in South Africa are relatively strong and call for transparency, you'll have seen throughout this lesson that there are some unavoidable weaknesses.

Sometimes, mistakes are made. Sometimes the system is exploited for the personal gain of politicians, administrators or their families and friends.

In the 2020/2021 financial year, for example, the Auditor General reported that at least R167bn of public money spent had been classified as "irregular expenditure" in national and provincial government alone. This does not include municipal authorities or SOEs.

Irregular expenditure is recorded following an investigation by the Auditor General into procurements where regulations have not been followed. It covers both honest mistakes and intentionally criminal acts.

You can find the Auditor General's reports at he official website. Municipal Money also collates data for municipal departments.

Even with this oversight, however, not all incidents of improper procurement are captured and made public. R167bn a year is the equivalent of 2.5% of all government spending, and the actual figure is likely to be much, much higher.

Journalists, civil society organisations, trade unions and other watchdog organisations are vitally important in ensuring the public procurement process is fully held to account.

For more information, see our extra resources section.