For the second year in a row, APLU assisted the South African National Research Foundation (NRF) to host an international conference on public procurement. The 2024 conference focused on specifications and methods in public procurement and was hosted on 4 and 5 September 2024 at the NRF Headquarters in Pretoria. For more information, click here.
On 24 to 25 July 2024, APLU convened a national workshop on public procurement reform in South Africa.
The aim of the workshop was to bring together all stakeholders to discuss current developments in public procurement reform in South Africa. The workshop is a continuation of a project started in 2023, broadly aimed at collective reflection on what public procurement system the procurement community wants and needs in South Africa and how all stakeholders can collaborate to get there.
The 2024 workshop was opened by Chief Justice Raymond Zondo, in which he reminded delegates that public procurement was at the heart of state capture as identified by the State Capture Commission which he chaired. He thus emphasised the importance of the aims of the workshop in pursuit of a reformed public procurement system in South Africa. The Chief Justice called on all delegates to carefully scrutinise current reform projects, such as the new Public Procurement Act and regulations to be made under the Act, to ensure that the weaknesses that enabled state capture through public procurement are effectively addressed.
The presentations by the various speakers can be viewed at the link below and recordings of the live stream are available on APLU’s YouTube channel.
This project is funded by the Millennium Trust.
On 17 to 18 June 2024, the Public Procurement Research Group at the University of Nottingham hosted its biennial international conference on public procurement law. The 2024 conference again gathered scholars from multiple disciplines around the world to discuss current research and developments in the field of public procurement.
APLU was again one of the collaborating partners for the conference and contributed to several sessions. Prof Geo Quinot delivered a plenary keynote that focused on reconceptualising public procurement (law and practice) globally. Prof Sope Williams shared insights from her most recent research addressing the corruption barriers to gender responsive procurement in a session that focused on diversity in procurement. Prof Quinot also joined Prof François Lichère of the Université Jean Moulin Lyon and Director of the Chair of Public Contract Law (Chaire de droit des contrats publics), Prof Christopher Yukins of the George Washington University School of Law and Prof Tünde Tátrai of the Corvinus University of Budapest on a panel that discussed deference to contracting authority decisions in procurement disputes.
APLU Deputy Director, Dr Allison Anthony, graduated on 19 May 2024 from the prestigious LLM in Government Procurement Law from George Washington University School of Law in Washington DC in the United States. This programme is the oldest dedicated degree programme focusing specifically on public procurement law. APLU and the Government Procurement Law Program at GWU have a long-standing close relationship of collaboration in the field of public procurement law. With Dr Anthony now an alumni of both entities, these bonds will inevitably continue to grow stronger.
A new publication, the Routledge Handbook of Public Procurement Corruption, edited by APLU Deputy Director, Prof Sope Williams, and GWU’s Prof Jessica Tillipman, was published in April 2024 providing a go-to reference for all who are interested in public procurement and countering corruption. This major work, with 33 chapters covering both thematic issues in public procurement corruption and country studies from around the globe provides one of the most comprehensive treatments of addressing corruption in public procurement.
Apart from Prof Williams, who contributed chapters on an overview of corruption and public procurement and on the position in Nigeria, other APLU researchers also contributed to the volume, with APLU Director, Prof Geo Quinot, authoring a chapter on corruption in COVID-19 procurement and APLU fellow, Prof George Nwangwu, writing on corruption in public–private partnership procurement. A number of African countries are also included among the country case studies in part III of the book.
More details can be found on the publisher’s website.
On 29 February 2024, APLU Director, Prof Geo Quinot, delivered the keynote address at the opening ceremony of the 12th edition of the International Master in Public Procurement Management (IMPPM) at the School of Economics, University of Tor Vergata, Rome.
The IMPPM is an innovative, multidisciplinary advanced degree programme in public procurement supported by several multilateral development banks such as the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, African Development Bank, and The Caribbean Development Bank.
Prof Quinot’s lecture focused on a shift in the animating feature of public procurement globally.
The African Procurement Law Unit organized two high-level engagements on behalf of the National Research Foundation of South Africa (NRF) to explore the linkage between public procurement and innovation in Africa. At a one-day colloquium (pictured above) followed by a two-day conference, held between 13 and 15 November at the NRF campus in Pretoria, leading international scholars engaged with local policymakers, practitioners and scholars in both the areas of public procurement and innovation to explore ways in which public spending can be leveraged to accelerate innovation on the continent.
Opening the conference, Mr. Imraan Patel (left), deputy director general for research development and support in the Department of Science and Innovation, noted the need to use the opportunity that the state’s enormous spend on public procurement presents to build our innovation ecosystem.
The South African government spends close to R1 trillion annually through public procurement. Scholars from multiple disciplines explored issues such as public procurement as an innovation policy tool, the transformation potential of public procurement for/of innovation, the state of current supply chains, mapping firm innovation patterns in South Africa, the role of technology in procurement of innovation, pursuing functional and relational public procurement paradigms, innovation for gender-responsive procurement, defense procurement as a driver of innovation and public procurement in open innovation approaches. Best practices across the world were considered in building an appreciation of a fit-for-purpose approach to linking public procurement and innovation in Africa.
All presentations at the conference van be viewed on the NRF YouTube channel.
APLU Deputy Director, Prof Sope Williams, represented APLU at the Procurement Regulatory Authority of Zimbabwe’s third annual conference in October 2023, held in Harare. Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa opened the conference and launched the country’s new electronic Government Procurement System.
Prof Williams delivered a paper focusing on the imperative for gender responsive procurement in Zimbabwe.
On 28 to 29 September 2023, APLU Director, Prof Geo Quinot, participated in the 5th Interdisciplinary Symposium on Public Procurement in Cagliari, Italy. The Symposium was hosted by the University of Rome Tor Vergata in collaboration with Sardegna Richerche (Sardigna Chircas), Sardinian Agency for Technological Research and Development. At the Symposium, Prof Quinot spoke on preferences and political economy in public procurement.
For more information on the Symposium, see https://publicprocurementsymposium.it/2023
For the third year in a row, Prof Geo Quinot of APLU assisted Corruption Watch to analyse reported data pertaining to deviations, contract extensions and debarment by national and provincial public entities in South Africa. The 2023 Procurement Watch Report on Procurement Risk Trends was released on 20 September 2023 during a webinar that discussed emerging trends. The Report covers the 2022/23 financial year and draws on statutory reports submitted to and subsequently published by South Africa’s National Treasury. The 2023 Report indicates significant increase in the number of deviations reported, but at the same time, a significant decrease in the value of deviations. This suggests that deviations are occurring more frequently, but for lower-value acquisitions. On expansions, the Report indicates that while the number of contract expansions during 2022/23 remained largely the same as in prior years, the value of extensions increased significantly from about R88 billion in 2020/21 to R157 billion in 2022/23.
For media coverage of the report and its release see the articles in the Daily Maverick, Business Day, Creamer Media, Engineering News and interviews on Business Day TV and SABC News.
