By Vaughn Ron­don

Dana-Marie Smith’s ar­ti­cle, The Pro­cure­ment Bill 2026 and the Cost of Weak­ened Ac­count­abil­i­ty, ad­dress­es the amend­ments to sup­pli­er chal­lenges, ex­emp­tions and the cor­rec­tive pow­ers of the Of­fice of Pro­cure­ment Reg­u­la­tion. An­oth­er au­di­ence must pay close at­ten­tion: the Named Pro­cure­ment Of­fi­cer.

The changes may nar­row what the OPR can do af­ter a Part IV com­plaint or in­ves­ti­ga­tion, but they do not turn the re­main­der of the Act in­to a sug­ges­tion. Ac­count­abil­i­ty, in­tegri­ty, trans­paren­cy and val­ue for mon­ey re­main statu­to­ry ob­jects. The of­fences, penal­ties, per­son­al ac­count­abil­i­ty pro­vi­sions and route to the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions al­so re­main.

Named means per­son­al­ly iden­ti­fi­able

Sec­tion 61(2) re­quires every pub­lic body to have a pro­cure­ment of­fi­cer re­spon­si­ble for its pub­lic pro­cure­ment and dis­pos­al of pub­lic prop­er­ty. The ti­tle Named Pro­cure­ment Of­fi­cer is there­fore not cer­e­mo­ni­al. It iden­ti­fies the per­son up­on whom the leg­is­la­tion places a de­fined re­spon­si­bil­i­ty.

Sec­tion 61(3) goes fur­ther. An of­fence by a pub­lic body may be con­strued as an of­fence by the pro­cure­ment of­fi­cer, or an of­fi­cer pur­port­ing to act in that ca­pac­i­ty, where it is proved that the of­fence oc­curred with that of­fi­cer’s di­rect con­sent or con­nivance, or that the of­fi­cer knew of it and failed to ex­er­cise rea­son­able dili­gence to pre­vent it.

Li­a­bil­i­ty is not au­to­mat­ic mere­ly be­cause a per­son holds the ti­tle; the statu­to­ry el­e­ments must be proved. Nev­er­the­less, ex­po­sure ex­tends be­yond the per­son who con­ceived the un­law­ful ac­tion. Knowl­edge of a breach, fol­lowed by fail­ure to take rea­son­able pre­ven­tive steps, may place the NPO with­in the frame.

The en­force­ment route is chang­ing

Be­fore the 2026 Bill, OPR de­ci­sions and rec­om­men­da­tions pro­vid­ed prac­ti­cal re­straint. De­pend­ing on the le­gal route and facts, a de­fec­tive pro­cure­ment could be paused, re­con­sid­ered, re-eval­u­at­ed, can­celled or recom­menced, and an award could be over­turned in chal­lenge pro­ceed­ings. This en­cour­aged cor­rec­tion be­fore an un­law­ful de­ci­sion be­came ir­re­versible.

Clause 5 changes the po­si­tion fol­low­ing a Part IV com­plaint or in­ves­ti­ga­tion. It would pre­vent the OPR, as a con­se­quence of that process, from sus­pend­ing pro­cure­ment or con­tract per­for­mance, di­rect­ing re­con­sid­er­a­tion, re-eval­u­a­tion or recom­mence­ment, ter­mi­nat­ing pro­ceed­ings or set­ting aside an award. Rec­om­men­da­tions un­der that Part would be ad­vi­so­ry and non-bind­ing.

If ad­min­is­tra­tive cor­rec­tion be­comes less avail­able, crim­i­nal en­force­ment be­comes more sig­nif­i­cant. Sec­tion 45 re­quires the OPR to re­port a mat­ter to the DPP where an in­ves­ti­ga­tion es­tab­lish­es rea­son­able grounds for sus­pect­ing an of­fence. The OPR does not charge any­one, and re­fer­ral is not a find­ing of guilt; the DPP de­ter­mines whether pros­e­cu­tion is ap­pro­pri­ate. A mat­ter that once might have end­ed with can­cel­la­tion, re­tender­ing or re-eval­u­a­tion may there­fore pro­ceed to­ward crim­i­nal en­force­ment.

The penal­ties re­main

The Act’s se­ri­ous penal­ties re­main. De­pend­ing on the of­fence proved, they range from $500,000 and one year’s im­pris­on­ment to $5 mil­lion and 10 years’ im­pris­on­ment. Split­ting pro­cure­ment, fraud­u­lent con­duct, al­ter­ing doc­u­ments, bid rig­ging and con­ceal­ing or de­stroy­ing in­for­ma­tion re­main of­fences. These are crim­i­nal con­se­quences, not ad­min­is­tra­tive in­con­ve­niences. In­struc­tions from an ac­count­ing of­fi­cer, chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer, board mem­ber, min­is­ter or tech­ni­cal of­fi­cer do not pro­vide an NPO with im­mu­ni­ty.

Do not jump out of your­self

In lo­cal par­lance, to “jump out of your­self” is to aban­don sound judg­ment. For an NPO, it may mean al­low­ing ur­gency, hi­er­ar­chy, friend­ship, po­lit­i­cal pres­sure, con­flict or anx­i­ety about con­tract re­new­al to dis­place the law. Say­ing, “The CEO said,” “The Chair­man said,” or “The Min­is­ter said” is no de­fence. Con­duct­ing or ap­prov­ing a pro­cure­ment out­side the Act may at­tract per­son­al ac­count­abil­i­ty.

The warn­ing ap­plies when eval­u­a­tion cri­te­ria change af­ter bids are opened, pro­cure­ment is di­vid­ed to avoid the cor­rect process, in­con­ve­nient records are sup­pressed, con­flicts are ig­nored, or the Pro­cure­ment Unit’s name is lent to an­oth­er per­son’s de­ci­sion. A sig­na­ture may be­come ev­i­dence of knowl­edge, con­sent, con­nivance or fail­ure to ex­er­cise rea­son­able dili­gence.

The safest re­sponse is dis­ci­plined pro­fes­sion­al con­duct. Give writ­ten ad­vice iden­ti­fy­ing the pro­vi­sion and con­se­quence. Pre­serve the com­plete record and doc­u­ment con­trary in­struc­tions. Nev­er al­ter, con­ceal or man­u­fac­ture records. Ob­ject clear­ly and es­ca­late through law­ful chan­nels where an in­struc­tion would cause a breach. Ex­emp­tion from a pro­cure­ment pro­ce­dure is not ex­emp­tion from ac­count­abil­i­ty, fi­nan­cial con­trols or crim­i­nal law.

The OPR must match its own ur­gency

A fur­ther con­cern is the vis­i­ble dif­fer­ence be­tween a sup­pli­er’s chal­lenge and an NPO’s com­plaint. A chal­lenge ac­ti­vates im­me­di­ate dead­lines: the procur­ing en­ti­ty is no­ti­fied, a re­ply is re­quired with­in three work­ing days, and sus­pen­sion is con­sid­ered with­in three work­ing days. The mat­ter moves to­ward case man­age­ment and, where nec­es­sary, a pub­lic hear­ing. Hear­ing dates and broad­cast links are pub­lished on YouTube.

The com­plaint route is less vis­i­ble. The com­plaint is ac­knowl­edged, legal­ly re­viewed, trans­mit­ted to Au­dit and In­ves­ti­ga­tions and as­signed to an in­ves­ti­ga­tor. The com­plainant is no­ti­fied up­on con­clu­sion. How­ev­er, OPR guid­ance con­firms that the Act im­pos­es no in­ves­ti­ga­tion dead­line. A com­mit­ment to avoid un­rea­son­able de­lay is not a pre­scribed timetable, trans­par­ent case man­age­ment or a hear­ing.

This cre­ates a le­git­i­mate per­cep­tion prob­lem. A sup­pli­er pro­tect­ing a com­mer­cial in­ter­est trig­gers rapid dead­lines and a pub­lic pro­ceed­ing, while an NPO re­port­ing in­ter­fer­ence, pres­sure or an im­pend­ing breach faces no com­pa­ra­ble statu­to­ry clock. The source of a com­plaint should not de­ter­mine reg­u­la­to­ry ur­gency. The NPO may be pre­vent­ing the il­le­gal­i­ty that lat­er be­comes a chal­lenge, in­ves­ti­ga­tion or DPP re­fer­ral while risk­ing his or her ca­reer and rep­u­ta­tion.

Se­ri­ous NPO com­plaints should have a par­al­lel tri­bunal-style pro­ce­dure. This rec­om­men­da­tion would re­quire an amend­ment, reg­u­la­tion or for­mal hear­ing frame­work. A cred­i­ble com­plaint con­cern­ing an on­go­ing or im­mi­nent breach should re­ceive im­me­di­ate triage, a fixed-pe­ri­od ju­ris­dic­tion de­ci­sion, in­ter­im pro­tec­tive di­rec­tions where pub­lic funds are at risk, dis­clo­sure and rep­re­sen­ta­tion rights, and an in­de­pen­dent hear­ing on a timetable com­pa­ra­ble to a chal­lenge. The pan­el should give rea­sons and re­fer sus­pect­ed of­fences to the DPP where the statu­to­ry thresh­old is met.

Hear­ings should or­di­nar­i­ly be pub­lic and livestreamed on the OPR’s YouTube chan­nel. Trans­paren­cy must not be­come tri­al by so­cial me­dia. The pan­el should be able to close part of a hear­ing, de­lay a broad­cast or redact ma­te­r­i­al to pro­tect whistle­blow­ers, con­fi­den­tial in­for­ma­tion, per­son­al da­ta, le­gal priv­i­lege, ac­tive in­ves­ti­ga­tions and pro­ce­dur­al fair­ness. Al­le­ga­tions must not be pre­sent­ed as find­ings be­fore af­fect­ed per­sons re­ceive no­tice and an op­por­tu­ni­ty to re­spond.

The name on the file may be yours

No NPO should as­sume that the in­sti­tu­tion will ab­sorb an un­law­ful pro­cure­ment’s con­se­quences. Sec­tion 61 looks be­yond the cor­po­rate name to the re­spon­si­ble of­fi­cer where par­tic­i­pa­tion, knowl­edge or in­ac­tion is proved. Do not al­low ur­gency, se­nior­i­ty or con­tract val­ue to dis­place the Act. If you know­ing­ly per­mit an un­law­ful pro­cure­ment and fail to ex­er­cise rea­son­able dili­gence, the ques­tion may no longer be whether the pro­cure­ment should be can­celled, but whether your con­duct should be placed be­fore the DPP.

Join the PC Plus Ac­tion Net­work

Named Pro­cure­ment Of­fi­cers should not wait un­til a chal­lenge, in­ves­ti­ga­tion or pros­e­cu­tion to build a pro­fes­sion­al sup­port sys­tem. NPOs who are com­mit­ted to law­ful de­ci­sion-mak­ing, prac­ti­cal peer sup­port and stronger pro­tec­tion for pro­cure­ment pro­fes­sion­als are in­vit­ed to join the PC+ Ac­tion Net­work.

The net­work will share emerg­ing risks, dis­cuss dif­fi­cult in­struc­tions, pro­mote con­sis­tent pro­fes­sion­al stan­dards and ad­vo­cate for a fair, time­ly and trans­par­ent NPO com­plaint process. Stand to­geth­er, doc­u­ment your ad­vice and pro­tect the pub­lic purse and the in­tegri­ty of your of­fice. Join the PC+ Ac­tion Net­work and add your voice to the call for equal ac­count­abil­i­ty.

Au­thor note

Vaughn Ron­don, di­rec­tor, pro­cure­ment Com­pli­ance Plus is a strate­gic pro­cure­ment and sup­ply chain con­sul­tant and pro­cure­ment pro­bity ad­vi­sor. He can be reached at vron­don@pro­cure­ment­com­pli­an­ce­plus.com