Businesses hold tender talks

Tuesday, 09 February 2010 19:53

Article in the Estcourt News: 5 February 2010

With complaints about the municipality's transparency and the tendering processes being brought under scrutiny, businesses were invited for a comprehensive  presentation at the Estcourt Golf Club last Tuesday.

The Estcourt Umtshezi  Chamber of Commerce and Industry (EUCCI) called on participants from local business owners for an evening to discuss how they could better understand how to tender for Umtshezi Municipality's services and what concerns they wish to raise with the local government.

A presentation by the municipality's Accounting and Supply Chain Management departments said although there have been numerous processes involved with the tendering of services, a lot of bidders seem unsure of the proper steps that decide which contractor is awarded a tender.

Some of the concerns from business owners were how external contractors were favoured over local companies who compete on the same level, and if the municipality had enough expertise and the  capacity to understand specifications made during  briefings.

Accountant (Expenditure) Sandile Ndlovu, welcomed criticism about the process and together with his colleagues Ebrahim  Desai (Income) and Khaya Goba (Supply Chain Manager) ordered for another platform to explain in-depth processes, when asked how tenders were regulated among most companies on the municipality's database.

The EUCCI inquired if there would be any opportunity for advertised tenders to also be made available to their offices to create more than one source rather than relying on the conventional way to advertise in the newspapers, as a required standard.

"Information is made available on the municipal website and also posted to the tender bulletin, where I think the chamber would have no problem getting access to," Sithole said.

Mr Goba agreed that although the Supply Chain Management ensured that the municipality's financial management act's standard are adhered to more training and education was required to help suppliers and established companies stand better chances when it came to the awarding of tenders or small services.

Chamber strives for direct relations

Tuesday, 09 February 2010 19:45

Article in the Estcourt News: 5 February 2010

Relevant communication has been identified by Estcourt Umtshezi Chamber of Commerce and Industry President, Steven Haggard as one of the keys in getting business involved in growing local economy.

Speaking to a local business consortium, Haggard said the chamber, as one of its projects for the current year, was to conduct an in-depth study of all businesses, some of which were excluded during the Business Retention and Expansion programme's findings last year.

"We want to collect data that is relevant to a business to better understand its service or product," Haggard envisioned and said this would be useful information in the chamber's filing.

The chamber is already disseminating information to local businesses via newsletters but has since discovered a need to give proper business guidance by knowing more about the businesses it needs to retain and grow.

Networking sessions and utilising information supplied by the South African Chamber of Commerce has also been adopted as positive development trends.

The survey aims at creating profiles that businesses fall under, e.g. environment, skills training, policy amendment and tourism.

This enables specific information supplied by the EUCCI to be disseminated to a particular company that needs it.

With less than six months since the local chamber was formed into the BR&E programme, the body is still inviting businesses to take  part and take interest in municipal matters whose responsibilities   the chamber are from time to time involved in.

A plan to also put together a specific business directory is on the cards while the organising of the 2010 Phuthu Festival promises to be the best this year.