The director-general of Angola’s National Public Procurement Service (SNCP), Osvaldo Ngoloimwe, said on Monday (26) that the government will be “more incisive” in controlling public contracts, with sanctions that could lead to the blocking of expenditure by Budgetary Units (UO).
Ngoloimwe was speaking to the press during a seminar promoted by the SNCP for technical reflection, standardization of procedures, and reinforcement of good practices in the field of public procurement for institutional officials, technicians, and specialists in the sector.
“We will be more incisive. We had an educational phase of almost two years – of training and capacity building. For this year, there are a number of situations that could lead to administrative sanctions, including the possibility of blocking BU expenditure,” the director assured.
He stressed that in addition to blocking accounts, senior managers will be held accountable for “exercising greater control over spending.”
Osvaldo Ngoloimwe acknowledged that several challenges contribute to the misalignment between action and compliance with public procurement law in Angola, including “habits” from the past.
“We must understand that our country’s first public procurement legislation dates back to colonial times and, over the course of the armed conflict, we have become accustomed to viewing public procurement as simply a matter of signing contracts and receiving invoices,” he emphasized, highlighting this paradigm as something that needs to be changed.
“Public procurement is planning, it is complying with procedures, and it is executing contracts efficiently, and, incidentally, we have seen some change and evolution over the years,” he added.
During the meeting, the leader warned Angolan administrative agents that, after March, with the blocking of OU expenses, it will only be possible to ensure the payment of salaries. All other types of expenditure will no longer be feasible, he stressed.
According to the director-general of the SNCP, another measure to be adopted this year stipulates that, in all contracts worth €168,000 or more, a deposit must be required from the contracted company to cover damages in the event of non-compliance.
According to Osvaldo Ngoloimwe, all expenses must strictly comply with the law. He added that, in 2024, the Angolan government began a process of evaluating companies whose contracts caused losses to the state, a process that led to more than fifty entities being prevented from contracting with the state due to non-compliance.
“We have a total of 53 companies. This is a performance indicator, which must lead us to two criteria (…): the level of seriousness of economic operators and the extent to which signing a contract with the State is an exercise of great responsibility.”
The director-general of the SNCP considered it premature to give figures regarding losses, as it is a dynamic process, i.e., some of the companies prevented from contracting have already repaired the losses to the State and have been removed from the list.
From February 22 to March 25, SNCP teams will conduct training sessions throughout the country to promote efficient and transparent public procurement, he said.
Source: Lusa
