The People's Water Forum is calling on Johannesburg Water to introduce virtual access to its public Bid Adjudication Committee meetings to reduce the cost of public participation and strengthen oversight of procurement decisions involving public money.
“Residents should not have to spend money printing hundreds of pages of documents and then incur additional transport and parking costs simply to observe how public money is being spent.
“Virtual attendance would dramatically reduce the cost to the public while allowing Johannesburg Water to retain its registration requirements and keep an accurate record of everyone attending the meeting,” the forum said in a joint statement.
Johannesburg Water's own Supply Chain Management Policy already recognises the importance of public scrutiny. Section 30.6 provides for open public Bid Adjudication Committee meetings, while section 30.6.4.1 requires written notice at least three calendar days before a meeting. The policy also requires an agenda to be published in appropriate media, which may include Johannesburg Water's website.
The most recent meeting was scheduled for 9am on Monday, 5 October, with the notice posted on Johannesburg Water's website only days beforehand, according to records identified by the forum.
View the invite and download the agenda here.
“Public access means very little if exercising that right is unnecessarily expensive or impractical.”
The People's Water Forum said Johannesburg Water should also create a stakeholder database allowing residents, civil society organisations, ratepayer bodies, journalists, businesses and other interested parties to register for notifications about upcoming meetings.
“Interested residents should not have to continually search Johannesburg Water's website to discover when a public procurement meeting is taking place,” the forum said.
“If someone has registered an interest in these processes, Johannesburg Water should be able to notify them directly.”
The forum said Johannesburg Water should go one step further and publish and alert the registered stakeholders of the outcome of the procurement process once a final decision has been made.
The forum said virtual meetings should also be recorded and retained as part of the procurement record for future public scrutiny.
The People's Water Forum would like Johannesburg Water to consider:
Introducing virtual attendance for all public Bid Adjudication Committee meetings while retaining physical attendance.
Creating a stakeholder notification database for alerts about upcoming BAC meetings.
Recording virtual BAC meetings and retaining the recordings as part of the procurement record.
Publishing the outcome of tenders considered by the BAC, including the successful bidder, contract value and sufficient information to allow the public to understand how the final award decision was reached.
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