The estimated value for Simplified Contracting (CS) in the first half of this year increased by 154% compared to the same period in 2021, rising to 3.3 billion Kz, according to the Statistical Bulletin of Angolan Public Procurement (BECPA) for the first six months 2022. Last year, the estimated value for CS or direct adjustments, communicated or identified by the National Public Procurement Service (SNCP) corresponded to 1.3 billion.

According to the Statistical Bulletin of Angolan Public Procurement (BECPA) for the first half of this year, of the 828 public procurement procedures, 281 were by CS, a reduction compared to the same period of 2021, in which 346 were registered, but still was the preferred choice of public managers, to the detriment of public tenders, considered the best form of hiring.

Simplified hiring is pointed out by specialists as the most permissible to irregularities, despite the obligation to register the expenditure in the SIGFE, the computer system under the supervision of the Ministry of Finance for the electronic processing of expenses of State institutions. “In this type of contract, managers can award it to a company in which they have an interest because the law is permissive. Just look at who is responsible for most of the public works contracts”, said economist Carlos Padre.

“The State itself is a user and a substitute in the direct delivery of projects to certain entrepreneurs, often forgetting that the most transparent way of awarding any contract is through public tenders”, he concluded.

Of the 828 open procedures, only 589 presented estimated values, in the order of 4.2 billion Kz. That is, 239 procedures had no estimated value for the contract, a clear violation of the Public Procurement Law by public servants who are obliged to communicate and publish the procedures in the Jornal de Angola and other media. This situation leads the SNCP to consider that “the shared information still does not cover the total of public purchases in the country, due to the level of non-compliance with communication by the contracting public entities”.

The justification report for the General State Budget (OGE) in execution and the proposal for 2023, which has already been considered by the Council of Ministers, points out as objectives for the execution of the expenditure the “continued structural improvement in terms of public procurement, through the reinforcement of the observance of competitive conditions within the scope of public tenders, reinforcement of transparency, as well as the expansion of the national system of electronic public procurement, of the contract management system and the development of new functionalities in the public procurement portal, which allow access reference prices and the main statistical indicators”.

According to the National Public Procurement Service, of the 828 procedures initiated in the first six months of the year, 158 were completed and resulted in the signing of 209 contracts worth Kz 849.5 billion.

Of these, 116 were direct contracts worth Kz 729 billion.

As for public procurement procedures by object, the category “acquisition of services” was the most registered in the first half, taking the lead with 361, followed by the category “acquisition of movable property” with 270 procedures. As for State bodies, the Ministries were the ones that opened the most procedures, with a total of 468, more than half of the total number of contracting procedures opened between January and June of this year.

Source: Expansão