By Vaughn Ron­don

If the re­la­tion­ship be­tween the Pro­cure­ment Reg­u­la­tor and the Named Pro­cure­ment Of­fi­cer (NPO) were a mar­riage, we would now be sit­ting in cou­ples ther­a­py. I would be on one side of the room, ex­haust­ed from car­ry­ing the weight of the re­la­tion­ship, while the Reg­u­la­tor sat on the oth­er side in­sist­ing that the rules of the house­hold were clear. The ther­a­pist would ask, “When did com­mu­ni­ca­tion break down?” My an­swer would be sim­ple: it broke down when I need­ed sup­port and was met with si­lence.

Why reg­u­la­tion

still mat­ters

This is not an ar­gu­ment against reg­u­la­tion. Named Pro­cure­ment Of­fi­cers un­der­stand why reg­u­la­tion mat­ters. We are en­trust­ed with pub­lic mon­ey, in­sti­tu­tion­al in­tegri­ty and process­es that must with­stand scruti­ny. We ac­cept that our de­ci­sions may be ques­tioned and that fail­ures can have se­ri­ous con­se­quences. What is dif­fi­cult to ac­cept is a re­la­tion­ship in which re­spon­si­bil­i­ty flows down­ward with force, while guid­ance, pro­tec­tion and com­mu­ni­ca­tion do not flow back with the same en­er­gy.

Caught in the mid­dle

The NPO stands at the cen­tre of com­pet­ing pres­sures. The ac­count­ing of­fi­cer wants an ur­gent re­sult. In­ter­nal clients want their goods and ser­vices yes­ter­day. Sup­pli­ers de­mand fair­ness. Au­di­tors re­quire ev­i­dence. The pub­lic ex­pects val­ue for mon­ey. The leg­is­la­tion de­mands com­pli­ance. When these in­ter­ests col­lide, the NPO is ex­pect­ed to re­main calm, in­de­pen­dent and pro­ce­du­ral­ly cor­rect. That ex­pec­ta­tion is rea­son­able. But in­de­pen­dence should not be con­fused with aban­don­ment.

When si­lence speaks

When an NPO re­ports vic­tim­i­sa­tion, in­ter­fer­ence or re­tal­i­a­tion, si­lence is not neu­tral. Si­lence sends a mes­sage. It tells the of­fi­cer who raised the con­cern that the sys­tem may be in­ter­est­ed in the pro­cure­ment process but not in the per­son re­quired to pro­tect it. It em­bold­ens those who see com­pli­ance as an in­con­ve­nience. It can al­so leave the NPO won­der­ing whether re­port­ing the prob­lem made the sit­u­a­tion worse.

Vic­tim­i­sa­tion does not al­ways ar­rive as a threat. Some­times it ap­pears as ex­clu­sion from meet­ings, the with­hold­ing of in­for­ma­tion, the re­moval of staff, hos­tile per­for­mance as­sess­ments, in­struc­tions de­signed to by­pass the NPO, or ques­tions about com­pe­tence af­ter an in­con­ve­nient ob­jec­tion is raised. Each ac­tion may be ex­plained away in iso­la­tion. To­geth­er, they can cre­ate an en­vi­ron­ment in which the of­fi­cer must choose be­tween pro­fes­sion­al du­ty and per­son­al sur­vival.

Why the re­la­tion­ship needs ther­a­py

This is where the re­la­tion­ship re­quires ther­a­py. In a healthy re­la­tion­ship, one part­ner does not iden­ti­fy the oth­er’s oblig­a­tions. There is lis­ten­ing, com­mu­ni­ca­tion, re­as­sur­ance and an ef­fort to solve prob­lems. The Pro­cure­ment Reg­u­la­tor should not be ex­pect­ed to man­age every work­place dis­agree­ment or au­to­mat­i­cal­ly ac­cept every al­le­ga­tion. How­ev­er, an NPO who re­ports con­duct that may un­der­mine law­ful pro­cure­ment de­serves ac­knowl­edge­ment, clear guid­ance, a fair as­sess­ment and in­for­ma­tion about what hap­pens next.

Too of­ten, the prac­ti­cal com­plaint is not sim­ply that an an­swer was un­favourable. It is that no mean­ing­ful an­swer came, no time­line was com­mu­ni­cat­ed, and no vis­i­ble process gave the of­fi­cer con­fi­dence that the con­cern was be­ing ad­dressed. That defin­ing si­lence cre­ates iso­la­tion. Iso­la­tion be­comes de­spair. De­spair even­tu­al­ly pro­duces one of two dan­ger­ous out­comes: the of­fi­cer leaves, or the of­fi­cer stays and learns that re­sis­tance is per­son­al­ly cost­ly.

Nei­ther out­come pro­tects the pub­lic purse.

An im­bal­ance

in ur­gency

As iden­ti­fied in my last ar­ti­cle, there is al­so a per­ceived im­bal­ance in ur­gency. When a sup­pli­er ini­ti­ates a chal­lenge pro­ceed­ing, the ma­chin­ery can move with speed be­cause statu­to­ry time­lines and com­mer­cial con­se­quences de­mand at­ten­tion. Yet when an NPO sub­mits a com­plaint about in­ter­fer­ence, vic­tim­i­sa­tion or con­di­tions that threat­en the in­tegri­ty of a pro­cure­ment ac­tiv­i­ty, the re­sponse can feel slow­er, less vis­i­ble and less struc­tured. To the of­fi­cer, this looks like match­ing en­er­gy for the chal­lenge, but not for the per­son try­ing to pre­vent the breach.

That dis­par­i­ty must be ad­dressed. A com­plaint from an NPO should ac­ti­vate a de­fined pro­ce­dure with stan­dards for ac­knowl­edge­ment, pre­lim­i­nary as­sess­ment, in­ves­ti­ga­tion and res­o­lu­tion. Se­ri­ous mat­ters should be ca­pa­ble of re­fer­ral to an in­de­pen­dent tri­bunal or suit­ably con­sti­tut­ed pan­el. The of­fi­cer and the pub­lic body should have an op­por­tu­ni­ty to be heard. Find­ings should be rea­soned, time­lines should be pub­lished, and out­comes should be com­mu­ni­cat­ed with­out un­nec­es­sary de­lay.

Where legal­ly per­mis­si­ble and ap­pro­pri­ate­ly anonymised, hear­ings or sum­maries could be made pub­licly ac­ces­si­ble, in­clud­ing through dig­i­tal plat­forms such as YouTube. Open­ness would help the wider pro­cure­ment com­mu­ni­ty un­der­stand how the rules op­er­ate in re­al sit­u­a­tions. It would al­so demon­strate that com­plaints in­volv­ing in­sti­tu­tion­al pres­sure are treat­ed with the same se­ri­ous­ness and ur­gency as sup­pli­er chal­lenges. Trans­paren­cy must pro­tect con­fi­den­tial in­for­ma­tion, due process and rep­u­ta­tions, but con­fi­den­tial­i­ty should not be­come a con­ve­nient cur­tain be­hind which in­ac­tion dis­ap­pears.

Com­mu­ni­cat­ing

be­fore the cri­sis

The Reg­u­la­tor must al­so com­mu­ni­cate be­fore the cri­sis. NPOs need prac­ti­cal guid­ance that ad­dress­es the hard ques­tions:

• ↓What should I do when an ac­count­ing of­fi­cer di­rects an ap­proach I con­sid­er non­com­pli­ant?

• ↓How do I doc­u­ment re­sis­tance with­out es­ca­lat­ing con­flict un­nec­es­sar­i­ly?

• ↓When does or­di­nary man­age­ment pres­sure be­come im­prop­er in­ter­fer­ence?

• ↓What ev­i­dence should ac­com­pa­ny a com­plaint?

• ↓What pro­tec­tion is avail­able while a com­plaint is be­ing ex­am­ined?

• ↓Who can pro­vide an ur­gent, con­fi­den­tial re­sponse be­fore an ir­re­versible de­ci­sion is made?

Guid­ance can­not live on­ly in leg­is­la­tion, gen­er­al hand­books or oc­ca­sion­al sem­i­nars. It must be ac­ces­si­ble when the NPO is fac­ing a live de­ci­sion, of­ten un­der in­tense time pres­sure. A ded­i­cat­ed ad­vi­so­ry chan­nel, pub­lished re­sponse stan­dards and a named case con­tact would make a sig­nif­i­cant dif­fer­ence. Even where the Reg­u­la­tor can­not give le­gal ad­vice or in­ter­vene di­rect­ly, it can ex­plain the process, iden­ti­fy the rel­e­vant oblig­a­tions and pre­vent the of­fi­cer from feel­ing aban­doned.

Ac­count­abil­i­ty

on both sides

The re­spon­si­bil­i­ty is not one-sided. NPOs must re­port con­cerns hon­est­ly, doc­u­ment them care­ful­ly and avoid us­ing the Reg­u­la­tor as a weapon in in­ter­nal dis­putes. We must dis­tin­guish per­son­al dis­agree­ment from gen­uine in­ter­fer­ence and re­main open to cor­rec­tion. We can­not de­mand ac­count­abil­i­ty from every­one else while re­sist­ing it our­selves. Cou­ples ther­a­py on­ly works when both par­ties are pre­pared to speak hon­est­ly and change their be­hav­iour.

But the pow­er im­bal­ance can­not be ig­nored. The NPO may be one em­ploy­ee with­in a large or­gan­i­sa­tion, re­port­ing con­cerns about peo­ple who in­flu­ence re­sources, pro­mo­tion, per­for­mance as­sess­ment or con­tin­ued em­ploy­ment. The Reg­u­la­tor, by con­trast, car­ries statu­to­ry au­thor­i­ty and in­sti­tu­tion­al stand­ing. When it re­sponds clear­ly and prompt­ly, it changes the risk cal­cu­la­tion for every­one. When it re­mains silent, the NPO ab­sorbs that risk alone.

What rec­on­cil­i­a­tion looks like

What would rec­on­cil­i­a­tion look like? It would be­gin with ac­knowl­edge­ment: “We re­ceived your com­plaint, we un­der­stand the risk, and here is the process.” It would con­tin­ue with com­mu­ni­ca­tion, pro­ce­dur­al fair­ness and rea­son­able time­lines. It would in­clude pro­tec­tion against re­tal­i­a­tion, clear es­ca­la­tion routes and pub­lished learn­ing from com­plet­ed mat­ters. Most im­por­tant­ly, it would recog­nise that sup­port­ing an NPO who rais­es a le­git­i­mate con­cern is not a favour to that of­fi­cer. It is part of pro­tect­ing the pro­cure­ment sys­tem it­self.

Coun­selling,

not di­vorce

The re­la­tion­ship be­tween the Reg­u­la­tor and the NPO does not need a di­vorce. It needs hon­est coun­selling and a re­newed com­mit­ment to mu­tu­al re­spon­si­bil­i­ty. NPOs must up­hold the law even when do­ing so is un­com­fort­able. The Reg­u­la­tor must en­sure that those of­fi­cers are not left alone when dis­com­fort be­comes vic­tim­i­sa­tion, si­lence or de­spair.

We are not ask­ing to be res­cued from ac­count­abil­i­ty. We are ask­ing for the com­mu­ni­ca­tion, guid­ance and in­sti­tu­tion­al sup­port re­quired to car­ry it. If this re­la­tion­ship is to work, the Reg­u­la­tor must lis­ten when the NPO says, “I am try­ing to do what the law re­quires, but I can­not do it alone.” The pub­lic purse de­serves an an­swer, and so does the of­fi­cer stand­ing guard over it.

Vaughn Ron­don

is an at­tor­ney-at-law