Provincial Treasury innovates to cut red tape and boost opportunities for small businesses

The Western Cape Government is committed to reducing red tape for businesses, especially small businesses who are interested in becoming Western Cape Government suppliers. As the first province to publish detailed Procurement Disclosure Reports in 2021, the Provincial Treasury continues to innovate and has today launched its new web enabled dashboard.

This user-friendly dashboard allows users to filter information they wish to access and interrogate it further.

A key addition to this new dashboard is access to all departmental procurement plans for 2022/23, roughly 4 000 tenders in the current financial year.

This functionality will help suppliers to access and plan for future tender opportunities and make it easier for businesses - and especially small businesses - to find opportunities and prepare to participate in the procurement process.

The dashboard will also enhance competition and the likelihood of SMME participation because a small business can now see all opportunities across departments for a particular commodity or service over the entire year.

In addition to this innovative dashboard, the Provincial Treasury runs the Procurement Client Centre, based in Century City, which offers a range of services to improve the ease of doing business with government, including providing procurement support assistance to provincial departments, entities, municipalities and suppliers through an integrated helpdesk.

This helpdesk helps to guide suppliers through the tender process as well as assisting suppliers with registration on the National Treasury’s Central Supplier Database (CSD) and the Western Cape Supplier Evidence Bank (WCSEB).

I visited the centre this week and I was impressed with the services offered. In the 2021-2022 financial year, the eProcurement Client Centre:

Assisted 5 747 suppliers with registration on the WCSEB;

Assisted with 1 244 e-procurement queries;

Assisted with 1 221 CSD registrations; and

Assisted the more than 3 500 walk-in clients at the centre in Century City.

These figures show just how hard the PCC works to ensure that suppliers are assisted and registered so that they have the opportunity to do business with the Western Cape government.

The services offered at the PCC as well as the new interactive dashboard are innovative examples that show the Western cape government’s commitment to supporting small businesses and to contribute to economic growth and job creation.

The PCC can be visited at Procurement Client Centre, 4 Waterford Place (SAP Building), Century City.

Please visit https://www.westerncape.gov.za/provincial-treasury/procurement-disclosure-report(link is external) to access the latest PDR and the dashboard. Suggestions for improvement are welcomed and encouraged for future improvements. Suggestions may be sent to wcseb@westerncape.gov.za(link sends e-mail).

Source: Government of South Africa