Stellenbosch University African Procurement Law Unit founding director Professor Geo Quinot noted on Friday that while deviation numbers in various departmental procurement reports decreased from 2017/18 to 2021/22, a sudden surge in deviations in the last two years is a cause for concern.

He noted that this may reflect increased reporting of deviations rather than an actual increase in deviations.

Corruption Watch launched its fourth 'Procurement Watch Risk Trends' report, which revealed the 2024 risk trends in public procurement and the number of deviations from prescribed procurement procedures reported by provincial and national departments to National Treasury from 2016 to the fourth quarter of the 2023/24 financial year.

Quinot noted a massive increase of 207% in deviations from 2022/23 to 2023/24.

He said that while the number of reported deviations increased dramatically between 2021/22 and 2023/24, the value of deviations, interestingly, fluctuated significantly.

“…these values are based on the reported value of deviations, bearing in mind that in a notable number of instances the value of the deviation was not reported,” he said.

He pointed out that the total reported value of procurement through deviations in 2021/22 was around R34-billion, and R11.9-billion in 2022/23, adding that in 2023/24 financial year, the total reported value of procurement through deviations increased to around R24.8-billion.

“Thus, while the total number of reported deviations increased more than five times in value from 2021/22 to 2023/24, the value of such deviations has declined. It is not clear that this represents a trend,” he added.

Meanwhile, Quinot explained that while reported contract expansions had steadily declined from 2017/18 to 2020/21, the data showed a slowing down of the decline in 2021/22 and an increase in reported expansions from 2022/23.

In 2023/24, there was a rapid increase in the number of contract expansions to 896, with the total value of expansions in 2023/2024 exceeding R37.8-billion.

Quinot said this was based on the reported value of expansions, which he noted was four times less the total reported value of expansions in 2022/23 (R157-billion).

“…the number of reported expansions in 2023/24 (894) rose when compared to 2022/23 (673). The implication is that while the number of expansions is rising, the average value has declined in 2023/24,” he highlighted.

He explained that the original value of the expanded contracts in 2023/24 was R33-billion, and the contract expansion value was R37.8-billion, saying this entailed a 115% average increase in contract value.

“There can be little doubt that a procurement contract that is doubled in terms of value after award is materially different in terms from the contract awarded by way of the procurement process. As with deviations, however, there is significant variance in the percentage increases through expansions between the 894 cases,” he noted.