New bill means no deal for corrupt business

Johannesburg - The government is planning to introduce a Public Procurement Bill to block business people found to have been involved in corruption from registering with the Companies and Intellectual Property Commission (CIPC), effectively barring them from doing business in the country.

Kenneth Brown, the CIPC chief procurement officer, said the bill would be “Draconian” and would include automatic measures to cancel suspect tenders and suspend officials.

“It shouldn’t be left to the discretion of somebody, because if you do that you will forever have the to-and-fro as to what needs to happen,” Brown told members of Parliament’s standing committee on appropriations yesterday.

Blacklisted

He was briefing the committee on progress made by his office since it was established in March 2013 to reform the supply chain management system in government.

Brown said the office’s central supplier database would automatically verify company information, identify directors and tax compliance status, as well as establish whether a company or its directors had been blacklisted by the Treasury or was an employee of the state.

The database interfaced directly with the CIPC, SA Revenue Service (Sars) and Home Affairs, director Tumelo Ntlaba said, and could supply real-time information on the business, tax compliance and empowerment status.

“With the central supplier database, once you are restricted, you can go and open a new company under a different name, we will identify you and you’ll not be able to do business with the state,” Ntlaba said.

Brown said the proposed legislation would restrict, not only companies involved in corruption, but their directors.

“In fact, together with that, what we’re proposing, if your company has done business, running contracts in other parts, we assume those contracts were also wrongly obtained, we may put them under administration, we may take them over. We’re talking draconian stuff here,” Brown said.

Directors would also be restricted from registering with the CIPC so that, if they were corrupting the state, they would be prevented from doing business outside the state.

“People say, maybe that’s unconstitutional, I say, no, corruption cannot be constitutional,” he said.

His presentation was received by the committee, with chairman Ndaba Gcwabaza promising its full support. “People are simply tired of corruption,” he said.

Brown gave the assurance he would not be leaving the post, as had been reported. “I will be on leave in July for two or three weeks, and I’ll be back,” Brown said.”I want to dispel the notion that everything hinges on me being there. I’ve got a competent bunch of people who drive this.”

POLITICAL BUREAU & BUSINESS REPORT