Dr Mar­garet Satya Rose

You may not have cho­sen this role.

In many pub­lic bod­ies, the Named Pro­cure­ment Of­fi­cer (NPO) po­si­tion ar­rives by mem­o­ran­dum or ad­min­is­tra­tive con­ve­nience, added on­to an al­ready full desk. Yet the mo­ment your name is record­ed as the NPO, some­thing shifts. The pro­cure­ment file be­comes a risk-bear­ing struc­ture. And too of­ten, you be­come the per­son ex­pect­ed to hold the line with­out the au­thor­i­ty, re­sources, or pro­tec­tion re­quired to do so safe­ly.

If you feel alone, un­cer­tain, or anx­ious about what could hap­pen when you in­sist on process, you are not imag­in­ing it. You are read­ing the sys­tem cor­rect­ly.

And so, this is the first of three columns writ­ten to and for you – part of a se­ries that I will be pub­lish­ing as Let­ters to NPOs.

A bro­ken promise

Sec­tion 61 of the Pub­lic Pro­cure­ment and Dis­pos­al of Pub­lic Prop­er­ty Act con­tem­plates a des­ig­nat­ed pro­cure­ment of­fi­cer who is not mere­ly an ad­min­is­tra­tor, but an in­tegri­ty ac­tor: some­one re­spon­si­ble for pro­cure­ment and, cru­cial­ly, some­one who may be per­son­al­ly ex­posed if the pub­lic body com­mits an of­fence and the cir­cum­stances point to con­sent, con­nivance, or ne­glect, un­less “rea­son­able dili­gence” can be demon­strat­ed.

That lan­guage mat­ters. The law ex­pects you to be a pro­fes­sion­al guardian of the process. In­her­ent is the promise that the role would be prop­er­ly re­sourced. In 2017, the then Cab­i­net ful­filled that promise and ap­proved a pro­cure­ment struc­ture for min­istries and de­part­ments that in­clud­ed a Chief Pro­cure­ment Of­fi­cer sup­port­ed by se­nior and ju­nior of­fi­cers, recog­nis­ing that in­creas­ing the pro­file of the po­si­tion with­in the or­gan­i­sa­tion and the seg­re­ga­tion of du­ties are fun­da­men­tal to build­ing in­tegri­ty. How­ev­er, alas, the same Cab­i­net on Sep­tem­ber 8 2023 re­scind­ed that de­ci­sion. The struc­ture was col­lapsed to one pro­cure­ment of­fi­cer, who may be as­signed the role along­side ex­ist­ing du­ties. The Chief Pro­cure­ment Of­fi­cer po­si­tion with a de­part­ment struc­ture was, in ef­fect, elim­i­nat­ed.

This re­ver­sal goes be­yond staffing. It rep­re­sents the de-pro­fes­sion­al­i­sa­tion of the pro­cure­ment func­tion, a re­gres­sive step strip­ping the NPO of grav­i­tas and sup­port, at pre­cise­ly the mo­ment where new civ­il and crim­i­nal li­a­bil­i­ties un­der the PPDP­PA makes pro­fes­sion­al­i­sa­tion of the func­tion most ur­gent.

The ac­count­ing of­fi­cer ten­sion: two ac­count­abil­i­ty regimes in one in­sti­tu­tion

And that’s not all. In T&Ts pub­lic fi­nance tra­di­tion, the ac­count­ing of­fi­cer is un­der­stood as the pri­ma­ry stew­ard of pub­lic mon­ey, an­swer­able for the prop­er con­duct of fi­nan­cial busi­ness, and for en­sur­ing pub­lic funds are used for the pur­pos­es in­tend­ed. That ac­count­abil­i­ty chain is foun­da­tion­al. It is al­so deeply em­bed­ded in the ad­min­is­tra­tive cul­ture of the State.

he PPDP­PA now in­tro­duces the NPO with a dis­tinct statu­to­ry role and, im­por­tant­ly, a dis­tinct ex­po­sure struc­ture. These regimes were not clean­ly rec­on­ciled. The OPR’s in­ter­nal con­trol frame­work us­es a RACI ma­trix, i.e. who is Re­spon­si­ble, Ac­count­able, Con­sult­ed, and In­formed. In the­o­ry, a sen­si­ble man­age­ment de­vice. But here is the prob­lem: a ma­trix can­not amend an Act – and sec­tion 61(3) of the Act makes the NPO crim­i­nal­ly li­able for pro­cure­ment of­fences.

Sub­sidiary guid­ance, hand­books and ad­min­is­tra­tive tools do not over­ride pri­ma­ry leg­is­la­tion. They can as­sist im­ple­men­ta­tion; they can­not re-write statu­to­ry du­ties or re-al­lo­cate statu­to­ry ex­po­sure. When a frame­work ap­pears to con­tra­dict what the Act im­pos­es, the con­tra­dic­tion does not dis­solve your oblig­a­tions. It mere­ly cre­ates con­fu­sion, and con­fu­sion is a dan­ger­ous place to live when li­a­bil­i­ty is per­son­al.

This is the reg­u­la­to­ry in­co­her­ence I con­tin­ue to call out. The in­ter­nal con­tra­dic­tions with­in the pro­cure­ment gov­er­nance ecosys­tem, where the Act con­tem­plates one ac­count­abil­i­ty log­ic, the reg­u­la­tions de­vel­op an­oth­er, and the guid­ance doc­u­ments op­er­a­tionalise yet an­oth­er. You may have felt this al­ready, told in one breath that pro­cure­ment ac­count­abil­i­ty sits with the ac­count­ing of­fi­cer; told in an­oth­er that “pro­cure­ment is your re­spon­si­bil­i­ty” be­cause your name is on the file. Both state­ments can be true in their do­mains, but the mis­match leaves you struc­tural­ly ex­posed.

Dili­gence is not hero­ism

You should not as­sume that an in­ter­nal al­lo­ca­tion of “A” to some­one else is a le­gal shield for you. It may be good gov­er­nance to have Ac­count­ing Of­fi­cers sign off on plans, re­ports, and ma­jor de­ci­sions. But if the Act con­tem­plates ex­po­sure for ne­glect and re­quires rea­son­able dili­gence, you must treat dili­gence as your pro­tec­tive du­ty, not as op­tion­al cau­tion.

That said, the law does not re­quire you to be a hero. Many NPOs feel they must ei­ther be­come mar­tyrs or be­come com­plic­it. There is a third path: pro­fes­sion­al dis­ci­pline that pro­tects both in­tegri­ty and ca­reer.

Your shield is the in­tegri­ty of the record.

That is why, in this first ar­ti­cle, I want to give you two sta­bil­is­ing prac­tices, the first two steps in eth­i­cal stew­ard­ship drawn from the POW­ER Guide we have de­signed to help pub­lic of­fi­cers:

* Pa­per trail every­thing;

* Ob­tain writ­ten au­thor­i­ty

These two prac­tices should be un­der­stood as in­sti­tu­tion­al care. They sup­port the State, safe­guard the pub­lic purse, and pre­serve your own in­tegri­ty.

Step 1: Pa­per trail every­thing

The pro­cure­ment file or Record of Pro­cure­ment Pro­ceed­ings (RoPP) func­tions as the per­ma­nent record of law­ful ad­min­is­tra­tion. Prop­er doc­u­men­ta­tion calls for con­tem­po­ra­ne­ous, neu­tral notes of de­ci­sions, rea­sons, ap­provals, and con­cerns.

A word of cau­tion, keep­ing a pa­per trail of your po­si­tions does not mean writ­ing emo­tion­al emails. It means build­ing a neu­tral con­tem­po­ra­ne­ous record of what mat­ters:

* What was pro­posed, by whom, and when?

* What your con­cerns were, framed as process and risk?

* What op­tions were con­sid­ered?

* What de­ci­sion was tak­en, and on what ba­sis?

* What ap­provals were ob­tained (or not ob­tained)?

* What you did to pre­vent ir­reg­u­lar­i­ty?

When pres­sure comes lat­er, when sto­ries are re­vised, when ur­gency be­comes jus­ti­fi­ca­tion, when rec­ol­lec­tions be­come “pol­i­cy” the RoPP be­comes the an­chor. A clean RoPP is your proof of rea­son­able dili­gence. Learn how to doc­u­ment your dili­gence in­to the record of pro­cure­ment pro­ceed­ings.

Step 2: Ob­tain writ­ten au­thor­i­ty

If you are in­struct­ed to pro­ceed in a way that is ques­tion­able, you should in­sist, calm­ly, on writ­ten au­thor­i­ty. This prac­tice re­flects gov­er­nance dis­ci­pline, and it forms the sec­ond step in eth­i­cal stew­ard­ship of the pub­lic pro­cure­ment func­tion.

I of­fer three non-prob­lem­at­ic, de­fen­si­ble scripts you can use:

“For the in­tegri­ty of the record, please con­firm this in­struc­tion in writ­ing, in­clud­ing the rea­sons and the au­thor­i­ty un­der which it is giv­en.”

“I can pro­ceed once the del­e­gat­ed au­thor­i­ty and the ap­proval path­way are doc­u­ment­ed on the file.”

“Please in­di­cate who is ac­count­able for this de­ci­sion and where the sup­port­ing jus­ti­fi­ca­tion will be record­ed.”

These sen­tences do not ac­cuse any­one or cre­ate un­nec­es­sary dra­ma. They are arte­facts of ma­ture pro­fes­sion­al en­gage­ment with in­struc­tions from se­niors.

If you adopt no oth­er prac­tice this month, adopt this: do not car­ry de­ci­sions that oth­ers will not own in writ­ing.

A short word to ac­count­ing of­fi­cers and boards

If you want pro­cure­ment in­tegri­ty, do not de­sign your sys­tem so that the NPO car­ries ex­po­sure while lack­ing au­thor­i­ty. Do not de­mand speed when plan­ning is ab­sent. Do not pun­ish doc­u­men­ta­tion as “de­lay.” Doc­u­men­ta­tion is gov­er­nance. Writ­ten au­thor­i­ty is gov­er­nance.

When in­sti­tu­tions treat dili­gence as in­sub­or­di­na­tion, they train staff to be­come silent. And when staff be­come silent, il­le­gal­i­ty be­comes hard­er to de­tect, and vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty to cor­rup­tion in­evitable.

You are not alone

If you are an NPO who has been made to feel like the “prob­lem” be­cause you ask for rea­sons, records, and ap­provals, I want you to hear this plain­ly: you may be the on­ly per­son in the room pro­tect­ing the in­sti­tu­tion from the very fail­ure it will lat­er de­ny. You do not have to be hero­ic, but you do have to guard the in­tegri­ty of the record.

Next month, we turn to what hap­pens when dili­gence is pun­ished, how re­tal­i­a­tion and in­tim­i­da­tion of­ten op­er­ate in pro­cure­ment en­vi­ron­ments, why “pro­hi­bi­tion” is not al­ways the same as “pro­tec­tion,” and the prac­ti­cal steps you can take with­out self-de­struc­tion.

In­tegri­ty can­not be leg­is­lat­ed in­to ex­is­tence by nam­ing a per­son. It must be built as in­fra­struc­ture.

This ar­ti­cle is part of the “Let­ters to the NPO” three-part mi­ni-se­ries in the ‘Nav­i­gat­ing the New Pro­cure­ment Re­al­i­ty’ col­umn de­signed to as­sist pol­i­cy­mak­ers, pub­lic ex­ec­u­tive lead­er­ship, and pro­cure­ment pro­fes­sion­als in nav­i­gat­ing com­pli­ance and lit­i­ga­tion risks while trans­form­ing pro­cure­ment gov­er­nance for pub­lic val­ue.

Dr Mar­garet Satya Rose is an at­tor­ney-at-law, head of Satya Ju­ris Cham­bers and CEO of PC+. The PC+ Ac­tion Net­work pro­vides pro bono sup­port for Named Pro­cure­ment Of­fi­cers and oth­er Pub­lic Of­fi­cers fac­ing com­pli­ance chal­lenges. Learn more: https://pro­cure­ment­com­pli­an­ce­plus.com