How government tenders work in South Africa

Before anything is advertised, the buying department defines what it needs and writes a specification. This is the stage that decides how much room you have. A specification written around one manufacturer's part number leaves very little; one written around a performance outcome leaves a lot. Specifications are signed off by a bid specification committee, which is one of the three committees the supply chain management rules require.

You will not see this stage from outside, but you can feel its effects. If a tender looks impossible to meet, the specification is usually the reason, and the clarification process is where you raise it.

The tender is published on the National Treasury eTenders portal, and often on the buyer's own site and in a provincial or municipal bulletin as well. The advert carries the bid number, a short description, the closing date and time, whether a briefing is compulsory, and where documents can be collected or downloaded.

Closing dates are the thing to watch. Larger tenders often allow three to four weeks, but request for quotation processes can close in five to seven working days. Because the advert is the first moment you can act, the gap between publication and your finding out is the single biggest controllable disadvantage most bidders have. That is what a tender bulletin subscription or a daily alert is for.

Many tenders include a briefing, sometimes called a site meeting or clarification meeting. Where the advert marks it compulsory, attendance is a gate: miss it and your bid is disqualified before anyone reads your price, no matter how good it is. Attendance registers are signed and the signed register becomes part of the evaluation record.

Compulsory briefings are common in construction, cleaning, security and any contract where the work happens at a specific site. Treat the date on the advert as immovable and budget travel time for it.

The tender document contains returnable schedules, which are the forms you must complete and hand back. These include the Standard Bidding Document set (the SBD forms), pricing schedules, declarations of interest, and whatever technical returnables the specification demands: company experience, key personnel CVs, method statements, plant lists, letters of intent from suppliers.

Baseline compliance for almost any public tender means registration on the Central Supplier Database, a valid SARS tax compliance status, and B-BBEE evidence in the form of a certificate or a sworn affidavit. Sector work adds its own gate on top, such as CIDB grading for construction or PSIRA registration for guarding.

Bids go into a tender box at the stated address, or through an electronic portal where the buyer uses one, and the deadline is enforced to the minute. A bid that arrives late is not opened. Where a two-envelope method applies, usually for professional services, the technical proposal and the price are submitted separately so the technical score is set before anyone sees the money.

At the closing time the box is opened in public and names, and often prices, are read out and recorded. That record is public information and worth collecting, because it tells you who your competitors are and roughly where the market prices this kind of work.

Evaluation runs in a fixed order, and each pass eliminates. Administrative compliance comes first: are the mandatory returnables present and signed. Functionality comes second where the tender uses it, scoring experience, methodology and capacity against a published matrix with a minimum threshold, often 60 or 70 out of 100. Fall below the threshold and you go no further even if your price is lowest.

Price and preference come last, under the Preferential Procurement Policy Framework Act. Points are split between price and specific goals on either an 80/20 or a 90/10 basis depending on the value of the contract. The split point and the way specific goals are defined have both changed in recent years, so read the preference section of the actual tender document rather than assuming the rule you used last time still applies.

The adjudication committee recommends an award, the accounting officer or authority approves it, and the outcome is published. Bidders who were not successful can request reasons, and there is an objection and appeal path if you believe the process was not followed. Unsuccessful bidders often skip this, which is a waste: the debrief is the cheapest market research available and it frequently reveals a fixable administrative error rather than a pricing problem.

Contracts also come with a validity period, commonly 90 days from closing, during which your offer must stand. Price your bid so that it is still viable if the award takes the full period, because escalation clauses are not always available.