The recent study on Civic Participation in Public Procurement for Better Public Resource Allocation by Council for Non -Governmental Organizations in Malawi CONGOMA with financial support from Tilitonse Foundation revealed a number of issues on how capacitation of Procurement Units in Councils leaves a lot to be desired.

The project which was carried out in three Districts namely Balaka, Lilongwe and Rumphi had brought attention to low staffing levels in Procurement Units as well as inadequate qualifications among the procurement officers. On average from the three Districts, staffing levels averaged 67% while only 33 % of the staff had the required qualifications for the procurement units. This is despite the fact that Procurement Units handle huge sums of money as they lead the Councils to buy goods, services and works which is ironic and upside down priority.

An analysis for Lilongwe Procurement Unit based on the study and from the District and National Interfaces that were conducted indicated that institutional review skipped the Procurement Unit for the District Council. That entailed those working as procurement officers were just outsourced from other departments to be handling procurement activities. Further, it was noted that the members of staff in the Procurement Unit do not meet the set required standards of having 5 prescribed staff members within the unit namely; the Procurement Officer, Stores Officer, Stores Supervisor, Senior Stores Clerk and Stores Clerk as  there are only two members of staff working in the procurement department.

For Balaka, Baseline study revealed that the Procurement Unit has one Procurement Officer who has been on acting on that position for a period of 7 years and does not have required credentials. This also does not meet the required standards of having at least 5 employees in the procurement department.

Coming to Rumphi District Council the study showed that the Council has 6 employees in the procurement department with only one person having procurement credentials.

Digging further, what came out in all the Councils was that employees in the procurement departments have lower grades as others are  just mere clerks while others are officers yet they handle huge someamount of money when procuring different materials and they represent the Council in high level Committees such as the Internal Procurement and Disposal Committee (IPDC) and their input in such committees is not held as they deal with Managers and Directors who have higher grades and qualifications than them.

In addition, what was noted during project implementation is that much as the procurement officers are not enough in Councils, they lack in house support to pursue further studies. From the three Districts where CPPP-BPRA was implemented, only one Council, Rumphi was noted making special arrangements on in-house trainings for procurement officers but not supporting them financially to attain higher education in universities.

When asked why the Council does not support procurement officers to attain higher qualifications, Public Works Director for Rumphi Allan Chitete had this to say;“Government does not allocate enough funding in Councils. For example, in our case, our budget for this year was over MK100 Million but Central Government gave us about MK 65 Million which does not meet what we budgeted for. As such, our hands are tight to allocate other funds to pay fees for employees in colleges”.

All the information which came out in regard to capacity in Councils was further taken to District and National Interfaces where Stakeholders expressed dissatisfaction on how the situation is like in Councils as some officers are on acting position for so many years and also not having relevant certifications in line with the nature of their job.

One of local chiefs in Balaka, Chief Sosola said the current status quo raises eyebrows and suspicions because one cannot trust Councils which have inadequate staff to handle huge amounts of money to purchase different goods, services and works.

“I believe Councils do that deliberately so that they capitalize on that weakness and siphon money from Councils. How can the whole Council allow the procurement officer be on acting position for seven years? Something needs to be done to rectify the whole situation, it’s our money we need to protect”, stressed the chief.

On a positive note, before winding up the project in February 2020, Director of Planning for Balaka District Obedi Mwalughali had confirmed that the Central Government had just recruited a new Procurement officer with credentials who had already reported for duties.

“As Balaka Council we are happy that currently Government has filled an important position of the Procurement Officer. For the past 7 years we had a procurement officer who was just acting but this project and its findings have facilitated the Central Government to quicken up everything and deploy a permanent employee with relevant credentials”, clarified Mwalughali.

Responding on the same, Director of Planning and Development for Rumphi District Frank Mkandawire made an assurance that the Council had started making processes of recruiting staff within the Council with the devolution process. He said Conditions of Service were already developed but only waiting to conduct a functional review where existing gaps would be rectified.

Having weighed everything, it is vivid enough that public procurement project which was carried out in the three districts exposed critical information which the general public was not aware of.  In addition, issues of inadequate staff were exposed and, gladly the project contributed to speed up processes of deploying a procurement officer in Balaka who has been on acting position for seven years.

It is CONGOMA’s sincere hope that District Councils will continue deploying qualified members of staff in procurement units as demonstrated by Balaka Council so that matters of public procurement are handled by people with relevant expertise. If this is achieved, there will be great credibility in how Councils execute duties and that will harbor confidence in the minds of the general public when handling public procurement matters.