The citizen cut

*Locals win 74% of tenders but get only 38% of the cash*Citizen-owned firms lack technical expertise and finances When Botswana’s economy entered a recession during the second half of 2024, a total of P32 billion in tenders was awarded for the 2024/25 financial year, with only P12 billion or 38% by value, going to citizen-owned companies. This disparity has raised concerns for the Public Procurement Regulatory Authority (PPRA. The figure further indicates that 58,154 out of 78,800 awards went to citizen companies, which represents 74% of the awards, but most of them were lower value contracts.

The PPRA attributes the gap to limited technical and financial capacity among citizen owned companies to compete for larger, more complex projects. “This relatively low share in value is primarily due to the awarding of a few high-value contracts to non-citizen companies, which significantly skews the distribution despite higher participation from citizen entities. Notably, vulnerable groups including women, youth, and persons living with disabilities were awarded tenders worth P5 billion, representing 26% of the total procurement value,” said PPRA Chief Executive Officer, Tumelo Motsumi.

Briefing the media on Monday, she noted that the inclusion of vulnerable groups brings a glimpse of hope towards inclusive procurement and targeted empowerment efforts. Motsumi said that there are high incidents of corruption in the public procurement space and this has led to poor project implementation and delayed service delivery, cost overruns, and substandard projects and services. Poor procurement planning has not only made life difficult for the private sector, it has also led to shortage of medicines in government health facilities, lack of textbooks and furniture in schools, poorly maintained infrastructure such as roads and government buildings, and most critically, low or no job creation.

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According to Statistics Botswana, the country is struggling to create more than 2000 sustainable jobs a year. Motsumi said that poor procurement systems have created a huge gap between the rich and poor and has eroded public confidence in the government in general.

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