BY MBONO MDLULI
LOBAMBA – If you plan to be a dodgy supplier, do not work with the Ministry of Agriculture because you will soon find yourself blacklisted.
According to Ministry of Agriculture Principal Secretary (PS) Sydney Simelane, they had taken an internal decision to blacklist any supplier who did not keep their promise. He said this during his Ministry’s appearance before the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) in the House of Assembly.
Members of the PAC were pleasantly surprised to hear that there was a Ministry that had the guts to blacklist an incompetent supplier. Somntongo MP Sandile Nxumalo said he thought he had come to know the Government machinery and after hearing this, it was clear that he was wrong. He said he had come to accept that no suppliers would ever be blacklisted within Government, no matter how competent they could be.
PAC Deputy Chairperson Manzi Zwane, who was chairing the PAC session, said they grappled with issues of incompetent suppliers in other Ministries. They kept asking themselves why it was difficult to deal with these suppliers. In response, Simelane said their advantage as a Ministry was that their suppliers were many. Because of that, it was easy for them to blacklist suppliers who did not meet their expectations.
