Following instructions issued by President Ian Khama that companies that fail to perform on government tenders should be black listed, the Public Procurement and Assert Disposal Board committee is scheduled to meet to consider which companies to black list.
The PPADB Legal Officer, Pego Aisam, said that currently they are still receiving reports from government departments regarding companies they had recommended for tenders after which they will conduct their own investigations relating to performance of companies then a committee will sit to evaluate the reports.
She said that information obtained from the evaluation will then be used to blacklist companies that had failed to perform.
Aisam said it was not yet possible to set time on when the committee will sit but that she was hopeful it will be this year.
Khama’s instructions that companies which fails to perform should be blacklisted followed an outcry in the country that companies were failing to deliver services on time, leading to such projects spending more than what was initially budgeted for them.
Local companies were initially said to be the main culprits in this regard, but later on it appeared that even foreign companies were equally guilty of failing to finish projects on time.
Some people are opposed to the idea of blacklisting companies, saying that it will only kill local industries who are, in most cases, the culprits, leaving the industries dominated by foreigners whilst others say it is a good thing as it will make contractors more serious in their work.
In the past, the Minister of Transport and Communication, Frank Ramsden, said that he supported the idea for the reason that it would help to reduce the losses that the government is experiencing through projects that are either abandoned or completed long after the scheduled time.
