On 7 April 2022, APLU, in collaboration with Crown Agents and the Open Contracting Partnership, hosted an open online workshop to discuss one of the recommendations on public procurement reform in South Africa, put forward by the Judicial Commission of Inquiry into State Capture (the Zondo Commission), viz. the creation of a Public Procurement Anti-Corruption Agency.

In brief, the Commission recommended:

“In the view of the Commission and for the reasons which follow, the appropriate starting point for any scheme of reform must include the establishment of a single, multi-functional, properly resourced and independent anti-corruption authority with a mandate to confront the abuses inherent in the present system. That authority could be called the Anti-Corruption Authority or Agency of SA South Africa (ACASA).”

This recommendation follows the proposal put forward in the draft Public Procurement Bill, published in 2020, for the creation of a Public Procurement Regulator.

Many other countries on the African continent and beyond have created public procurement authorities of various types. These provide rich experiences for South Africa to look at in considering the creation of a procurement authority of some sort.

The workshop hosted leaders from existing procurement authorities in Kenya, Ghana and Chile as well as experts from APLU, Crown Agents and the Open Contracting Partnership to share their experiences in setting up and running such entities. It also created an opportunity for discussing the proposals put forward for creating such an entity in South Africa. More than 200 participants joined the event.

The programme with speaker bios, presentations and recordings of the various sessions can be found below.