Annual general report of the controller and - Parliament of Tanzania

Furthermore, some of the appointed Secretaries to the
Tender Boards were neither procurement specialists nor
heads of Procurement Management Unit contrary to part 2
(c) of second schedule made under section 28 (2). There
were cases whereby members of Tender Board failed to
attend tender board meetings for more than three
consecutive meetings without justifiable reasons and no
action taken on absence by Chief Executive Officers.
7.1.4 Inadequate independence of procurement functions and
powers among pillars
Section 38 of Public Procurement Act, 2004 spells out that
Chief Executive, Tender Board, Procurement Management
Unit, the User Departments and evaluation committee shall
act independently in relation to their respective functions
and powers. However, many organization structures of
Public Authorities indicated that procurement management
units are placed under various user departments such as
Finance and Administration department which impairs the
independence of the two pillars in procurement process.
In addition, there were interference between the functions
of the Chief Executive Officers and the Tender Boards that
the chairman and members of the tender boards were the
signatories of procurement contracts documents contrary
to regulation 33 (3) of G. N. No. 97 which prohibits
delegation of the functions to members of Tender Boards
and staff of Procurement Management Unit.
For instance, at Tanzania Communication Regulatory
Authority, the Secretary of the tender board (the Supplies
and Logistics Officer) functionally reports to the Director of
Corporate Resources Management who is the Chairman of
the tender board. This undermines the independence of
“PMU”. Also procurements requisitions from user
departments are not sent to the Supplies and Logistics
Officer; rather, they are directly tabled at tender board
meetings. Evaluation reports also are directly tabled by the
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Office of the Controller and Auditor General PA&oBs 2007/08 126