SARS takes cautious approach to R3bn spend

Johannesburg, 09 May 2006

As the SA Revenue Service (SARS) prepares to spend almost R3 billion of taxpayers' money on two large tenders, the organisation says its executive committee is still carefully mulling the short-listed bids to make sure the best decision is made.

Both the customs scanner tender (to install 12 to 18 container scanners at the Durban harbour and at other ports around the country) and the tender for the replacement of data and voice networks within SARS are in their final stages of review.

The value of each of the tenders is in the region of R1.5 billion.

"Though we intended to award the tenders last month, the SARS executive committee (exco) and the commissioner must be satisfied that the recommendations made to exco are in the best interests of the organisation and the taxpayer," says SARS spokesman Adrian Lackey.

Lengthy process

The bidders were short-listed to three in December, and in early March SARS announced it would table the results of the customs scanner tender evaluations to exco "within days".

Since then, the exco and the commissioner have been in talks to ensure the best service provider is found, and that the pricing models are in the best interests of SARS and the taxpayer, notes Lackey.

He adds: "Exco is following the same principles [with the voice and data network tender] because it is also a large amount of public money and we must ensure the service provider will be of best value."

Hesitant to commit to an announcement date, Lackey says: "The conclusion of the tender reviews is imminent."