By Dr. Mar­garet Satya Rose

The Of­fice of Pro­cure­ment Reg­u­la­tion (OPR) is­sued an in­ter­est­ing com­mu­niqué on An­nu­al Pro­cure­ment Plan­ning on 12 No­vem­ber 2025 to pub­lic bod­ies. The com­mu­niqué an­nounces what ap­pears to be a fun­da­men­tal re-in­ter­pre­ta­tion of pro­cure­ment plan­ning oblig­a­tions un­der sec­tion 27(1) of the Pub­lic Pro­cure­ment and Dis­pos­al of Pub­lic Prop­er­ty Act (PPDP­PA). The con­tent, tone, and omis­sions in that com­mu­ni­ca­tion re­quire care­ful scruti­ny, not be­cause plan­ning is a bu­reau­crat­ic ex­er­cise, but be­cause pro­cure­ment plan­ning is one of the most im­por­tant in­ter­nal-con­trol mech­a­nisms in the mod­ern gov­er­nance ar­chi­tec­ture.

One im­me­di­ate cor­rec­tion is nec­es­sary. The statu­to­ry six-week pe­ri­od ref­er­enced in sec­tion 27 (1) runs from the date the na­tion­al bud­get is ap­proved. For the 2026 fis­cal year, this was 25 Oc­to­ber 25, 2025, when the Ap­pro­pri­a­tion Act was passed by Par­lia­ment, not as the com­mu­niqué notes, the Oc­to­ber 13, 2025 when the Min­is­ter pre­sent­ed the bud­get. This mis­state­ment is not mere­ly tech­ni­cal. Sec­tion 27(1)(a) of the PPDP­PA ex­press­ly re­quires pub­li­ca­tion “no lat­er than six weeks af­ter the ap­proval of the Na­tion­al Bud­get… in­for­ma­tion re­gard­ing all planned pro­cure­ment ac­tiv­i­ties for the fol­low­ing 12 months.” Us­ing the in­cor­rect start date ar­ti­fi­cial­ly short­ens the law­ful time­frame and in­tro­duces con­fu­sion in­to a process al­ready marked by un­cer­tain­ty.

What the com­mu­niqué as­serts

The com­mu­niqué as­serts three key propo­si­tions:

* That the An­nu­al Pro­cure­ment Plan (APP) has no statu­to­ry sub­mis­sion time­line;

* That com­pli­ance with sec­tion 27(1) is sat­is­fied sole­ly by the pub­li­ca­tion of the An­nu­al Sched­ule of Planned Pro­cure­ment Ac­tiv­i­ties (ASP­PA); and

* That sub­mis­sion of the APP to the OPR is “not manda­to­ry”, with the Guide­lines to be amend­ed ac­cord­ing­ly.

Stand­ing alone, these state­ments ap­pear as clar­i­fi­ca­to­ry of ex­ist­ing com­pli­ance oblig­a­tions. Read in con­text, they amount to reg­u­la­to­ry gaslight­ing, a repo­si­tion­ing that would cause those of us work­ing in the pro­cure­ment com­pli­ance field to ques­tion the re­al­i­ty we have been op­er­at­ing in.

The OPR’s cur­rent Gen­er­al Guide­lines, which re­main in force and a manda­to­ry re­quire­ment un­der sec­tion 30(1)(a) of the PPDP­PA, state un­equiv­o­cal­ly:

“The Plan must be trans­mit­ted with­in six (6) weeks of the ap­proval of the Na­tion­al Bud­get to the OPR for its re­view and not­ing.” [em­pha­sis mine] (Gen­er­al Guide­lines De­vel­op­ing the An­nu­al Pro­cure­ment Plan, p. 2)

A reg­u­la­tor is, of course, free to re­vise its guid­ance prospec­tive­ly. What that would mean if a reg­u­la­tor were to de­cide to make new law (bind­ing un­der sec­tion 30 of the Act) every Mon­day morn­ing is an­oth­er mat­ter. That said, what it can­not do is ret­ro­spec­tive­ly re­de­fine manda­to­ry oblig­a­tions or col­lapse dis­tinct statu­to­ry con­cepts. Yet that is pre­cise­ly the ef­fect of the com­mu­niqué’s fram­ing.

Dis­tin­guish­ing the ASP­PA and the APP

Sec­tion 27(1) re­quires pub­li­ca­tion of “in­for­ma­tion re­gard­ing all planned pro­cure­ment ac­tiv­i­ties.” The ASP­PA is the pub­lic-fac­ing out­put of a deep­er in­ter­nal process. It is de­rived from the APP, not a sub­sti­tute for it.

The APP is the an­a­lyt­i­cal en­gine that maps spend cat­e­gories, analy­ses mar­ket con­di­tions, de­vel­ops cat­e­go­ry strate­gies, iden­ti­fies pro­cure­ment risks, fore­casts de­mand, and aligns ac­tiv­i­ties with bud­get and or­gan­i­sa­tion­al ob­jec­tives.

The ASP­PA, on the oth­er hand, is on­ly the pub­li­ca­tion of the re­sult­ing sched­ule. To treat them as equiv­a­lent is to col­lapse the strate­gic in­to the cler­i­cal.

No pro­cure­ment pro­fes­sion­al, reg­u­la­tor or au­di­tor would dis­pute this dis­tinc­tion. In­deed, the OPR’s own Frame­work of In­ter­nal Con­trol (ref­er­enced on page 2 of the com­mu­niqué) states that the APP is “a key con­trol point… en­sur­ing align­ment of pro­cure­ment ac­tiv­i­ties with man­date, strate­gic ob­jec­tives, bud­get and op­er­a­tional pri­or­i­ties.” [em­pha­sis mine]

A list can­not per­form this func­tion. A list can­not pro­vide as­sur­ance.

A deep­er con­cern: The pat­tern of reg­u­la­to­ry re­treat

This mo­ment must al­so be viewed in its wider con­text. More than two years af­ter procla­ma­tion, it is not clear that any pub­lic body has yet pro­duced a com­pli­ant APP. This is not be­cause plans are un­nec­es­sary. It is be­cause the sys­tem did not re­ceive the im­ple­men­ta­tion sup­port for sys­tem change, i.e., tech­ni­cal clar­i­ty, prac­ti­cal tools, coach­ing and ca­pac­i­ty-build­ing, feed­back mech­a­nisms, pi­lots and con­trolled in­no­va­tion, dig­i­tal en­able­ment and trans­par­ent, legal­ly co­her­ent guid­ance.

Rather than con­front this sys­temic im­ple­men­ta­tion fail­ure, the OPR now re­lax­es the stan­dard, re­duc­ing the re­quire­ment to a sched­ule and cast­ing the APP as an op­tion­al in­ter­nal tool. This is not re­form. It rep­re­sents a re­treat from the stan­dards the Act was de­signed to en­trench.

The ef­fect is twofold. First, it sig­nals that re­sis­tance to com­pli­ance will even­tu­al­ly be ac­com­mo­dat­ed; and sec­ond, it dis­man­tles the strate­gic foun­da­tion the PPDP­PA was de­signed to build.

This is es­pe­cial­ly trou­bling in a ju­ris­dic­tion whose pro­cure­ment sys­tem has long been weak­ened by a lack of plan­ning, ad-hoc pur­chas­ing and pre­ma­ture con­tract­ing de­ci­sions. The con­se­quences of poor or ab­sent pro­cure­ment plan­ning are nei­ther the­o­ret­i­cal nor re­mote. They are vis­i­ble across the pub­lic sec­tor and borne by cit­i­zens dai­ly.

The re­cent dif­fi­cul­ties at CEPEP, for ex­am­ple, where con­tract re­newals clus­tered im­me­di­ate­ly be­fore the 2025 gen­er­al elec­tions, il­lus­trate how vul­ner­a­ble large op­er­a­tional pro­grammes be­come when there is no struc­tured, for­ward-look­ing pro­cure­ment plan. An APP would have re­quired re­new­al cy­cles, mar­ket en­gage­ment and bud­get align­ment to be ad­dressed far ear­li­er, re­duc­ing the pres­sure and opac­i­ty as­so­ci­at­ed with last-minute con­tract­ing. The fail­ure to plan mul­ti-year con­tract­ing cy­cles trig­gered emer­gency ex­ten­sions, stop-gap Cab­i­net fund­ing ap­provals, months-long pay­ment de­lays, al­le­ga­tions of fraud and cor­rup­tion and op­er­a­tional in­ter­rup­tions in dozens of com­mu­ni­ties.

This is pre­cise­ly what oc­curs when de­mand fore­cast­ing, cat­e­go­ry strate­gies and re­new­al cy­cles are not em­bed­ded with­in an APP. A sim­ple list, even if pub­lished in a time­ly fash­ion, would not have pre­vent­ed the fall­out.

The strate­gic vi­sion the PPDP­PA in­tend­ed

The PPDP­PA was not con­ceived as a rules-on­ly in­stru­ment. Sec­tion 5 ar­tic­u­lates a strate­gic mod­el of pro­cure­ment: sus­tain­able de­vel­op­ment, lo­cal in­dus­try de­vel­op­ment, val­ue for mon­ey and the el­e­va­tion of pro­cure­ment to a pub­lic-pur­pose func­tion.

Plan­ning is the on­ly mech­a­nism through which those ob­jec­tives be­come op­er­a­tional. It en­ables ag­gre­ga­tion of de­mand, sup­pli­er-re­la­tion­ship man­age­ment, risk-based pro­cure­ment strate­gies, iden­ti­fi­ca­tion of ef­fi­cien­cy op­por­tu­ni­ties, es­tab­lish­ment of frame­work agree­ments for re­cur­ring ex­pen­di­ture items, de­vel­op­ment of in­no­va­tion part­ner­ships and im­proved bud­get­ing ac­cu­ra­cy.

By min­imis­ing the APP, the com­mu­niqué nar­rows pro­cure­ment back in­to a re­ac­tive, trans­ac­tion­al cy­cle, un­der­min­ing the trans­for­ma­tive in­tent of the Act.

A mo­ment of in­sti­tu­tion­al choice

The com­mu­niqué does not change the law. Sec­tion 27(1) re­mains in full ef­fect. The Gen­er­al Guide­lines re­main bind­ing un­til for­mal­ly amend­ed. The APP re­mains the in­ter­nal con­trol re­quired to achieve the Act’s ob­jec­tives. So pub­lic bod­ies there­fore face a choice. Ei­ther fol­low the min­i­mum in­ter­pre­ta­tion in the com­mu­niqué or ad­here to the eth­i­cal pur­pose of pro­cure­ment law and de­vel­op the ca­pac­i­ty to en­gage in ro­bust an­nu­al pro­cure­ment plan­ning.

The lat­ter ap­proach will bet­ter with­stand au­dit, ju­di­cial scruti­ny, and pub­lic ac­count­abil­i­ty. It will al­so de­liv­er bet­ter out­comes for cit­i­zens.

Reg­u­la­to­ry re­treat does not oblige in­sti­tu­tion­al re­treat. In mo­ments of un­cer­tain­ty, lead­er­ship here falls to those who un­der­stand that good pro­cure­ment is not about com­pli­ance with rules, but ad­her­ence to the eth­i­cal val­ues un­der­pin­ning the law. Good pro­cure­ment must be­gin with good plan­ning. It is a prin­ci­ple so fun­da­men­tal that it should not re­quire re­state­ment.

About the NNPR Se­ries

The Nav­i­gat­ing the New Pro­cure­ment Regime se­ries is de­signed to as­sist pol­i­cy­mak­ers, pub­lic ex­ec­u­tive lead­er­ship, pro­cure­ment pro­fes­sion­als and bid­ders in nav­i­gat­ing new com­pli­ance and lit­i­ga­tion risks while trans­form­ing pro­cure­ment gov­er­nance to achieve strate­gic in­no­va­tion and best val­ue for pub­lic mon­ey.

About the Au­thor

Dr Mar­garet Satya Rose, at­tor­ney at law, is Head of Satya Ju­ris Cham­bers and Founder & CEO of Pro­cure­ment Com­pli­ance Plus Lim­it­ed, a pro­cure­ment con­sult­ing and ca­pac­i­ty build­ing firm. Dr Rose can be con­tact­ed at mrose@pro­cure­ment­com­pli­an­ce­plus.com