Make officials feel the pain of nonpayment‚ says state’s procurement boss

Government officials who don’t pay businesses for their services within 30 days should be hit where it hurts most – their salaries – the state’s chief procurement officer said on Friday.

Speaking at a business dialogue‚ hosted by the African Entrepreneurs Council‚ in Johannesburg‚ Kenneth Brown said his office had started making changes to procurement systems to ensure the payment of suppliers within 30 day but this desired state had not yet been achieved.

More than 8 000 suppliers are waiting for the state to pay invoices worth R400-million. This figure does not include a small group of big suppliers whose bill stand more than R90-billion.

“We wrote something that the director general of Treasury must approve which says …if a department has not paid a supplier within 30 days‚ they are breaking the law

“Maybe we must instruct our payroll system not to pay the accounting officer so that the accounting officer must feel what you as the business person feels‚” said Brown.

Brown was responding to entrepreneurs at the dialogue who told him that the consequences of late payments resulted in companies not having the cash for operations and paying salaries and that some businesses even end up by having to close down.

Annually‚ government procures R600-billion worth of goods and services. The state uses its procurement policy to stimulate the growth of small businesses.