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Fidelis Munyoro
Chief Court Reporter
ZIMBABWE Revenue Authority (Zimra) is seeking to extend the validity of a tender for provision of cash in transit and static security guard services for the country’s borders to end of July this year to enable it finalise the process of awarding the tender.
This has raised concerns among the shortlisted companies over the tax collector’s further delays to decide the winners of the tender.
The move to extend the bid validity by 24 months to end of July this year comes after the Procurement Regulatory Authority of Zimbabwe (PRAZ) had long approved a list of companies to offer security services at the country’s borders.
The tender process of selecting the security firms started in July last year.
Last week, Zimra wrote to shortlisted companies notifying them of its intention to further extend the bid validity.
“Zimbabwe Revenue Authority is requesting for the extension of the bid validity to July 27, 2022 to enable the completion and award of the tender.
“Kindly confirm in writing whether you are agreeable to the extension of the bid validity.
“You are required to send the revalidation of the bid letter to the procurement management unit before or on the May 27, 2022,” read a letter to one of the bidders, dated May 20 and signed by acting director procurement management unit, Dr BE Mushanyuri.
Zimra has also split the same tender and only two weeks ago, the authority awarded two lots to a company known as Seasec Investments, but decided to defer the award in respect of the other lots. So far lot 5 had no winner.
The delays in deciding the winners of the massive tender has resulted in Zimra retaining firms whose contracts expired in December last year through monthly extensions of their contracts, instead of going for a permanent solution as approved by PRAZ.
PRAZ chief executive Mr Clever Ruswa is on record saying the Special Procurement Oversight Committee (SPOC) in March this year endorsed the list of security companies recommended by Zimra, and it was now up to the tax collector to implement the decision.
“The Zimra accounting officer submitted the security services tender on March 2, 2022 for review by SPOC and the SPOC Resolution 0188 of March 10 2022 cleared the accounting officer’s proposal to award the tender as per their recommendations and communication was done to the accounting officer on March 14, 2022,” said Mr Ruswa in an interview early this year.
The tender under NCB30/2021 for security services was advertised in July last year, but the process was cancelled after a number of security companies had already responded.
Five months later, the companies that had responded to the July advertisement were asked to re-submit their tender documents.
That delay was caused by the need to deal with the regulator wanting a more competitive bid.
Instead of acting on the PRAZ approvals, impeccable sources said Zimra was now seeking to reverse the process.
In terms of Statutory Instrument 5 of 2018, a procuring entity “shall complete the evaluation of bids within fifteen days after the end of the bidding period, provided that an extension of the time for evaluation may be authorised, in writing, by the procuring entity’s accounting officer, where the procurement contract does not require prior review by the SPOC or the authority, where the procurement contract requires prior review by the SPOC”.
In December last year, the SPOC once objected to the manner in which Zimra had intended to procure the security services, resulting in a delay.
Zimra’s standard bidding document that time was weak as it sought to block other bidders and limit competition.
The standard bidding document had a weakness in that it requested bidders to submit at least two trade references from reputable financial institutions and also proof of CIT vehicles which are less than seven-years-old, requirements which unnecessarily limited competition in violation of the objectives of the public procurement set under Section 4 of the Public Procurement and Disposal of Assets Act.
This resulted in the accounting officer being advised to craft a new standard bidding document in a manner that achieves the objective of the public procurement of promoting competition as set out under Section 4 of the Act.
It is the new standard document crafted by Zimra that was then approved by PRAZ.
At the moment, Zimra’s region 1 establishments (Harare, Chirundu, Nyamapanda and others) are manned by Modern Security, while Peace Security secures region 2 which covers areas like Bulawayo, Plumtree and Victoria Falls. Nobel Security operates in Beitbridge.
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