Digital illiteracy denies women to access public procurement deals

This was said last week during a workshop in Dar es Salaam by the Assistant Research Fellow with the Economic and Social Research Foundation (ESRF), George Temba when presenting research findings by ESRF which jointly collaborated with REPOA and Women and Social Protection Tanzania (WSP), in a broader project to increase the capacity of women owned businesses to participate in public procurement in Tanzania.

The project was funded by a Canadian International Development Centre (IDRC) based in Nairobi, Kenya.

He said that women-owned SMEs are generally excluded from the public procurement system worldwide.

“Public procurement is an important policy tool for a country’s growth, and socio-economic transformation,” he said.

Temba mentioned some of the constraints facing WMSEs in accessing government supply contracts among others as: Inadequate awareness and compliances of the law and regulatory procedures regarding affirmative action policies, gender responsive procurement (GRP) process and Gender Sensitive Legal and Regulatory Framework.

Big corporations and governments’ complex structures are difficult for women-owned SMEs to penetrate.

Price competition can also deter the participation of special groups in the public procurement process.

Bureaucracy and delaying payments that create devastating effects on women-owned SMEs, given their constrained financial resources and ability to absorb the impact of failure to promptly pay SMEs compared to larger firms.

Other includes inadequate resources, mainly financial, human and time, among women-owned SMEs to spend in the application and the initial financial needs of projects.

Women SMEs also tend to have less business experience, and other competing family and unpaid care engagements.

But many have inadequate information about the government and corporate systems, including calls for bids. This is especially challenging for start-ups, women SMEs and non-mature businesses in the ecosystem.

Unreasonable demands and high technical requirements whilst the majority of Women SMEs have limited finance skills, as well as human and social capital.

Digital illiteracy is a hurdle for women’s SMEs to access public procurement platforms that are increasingly available via government portal (e-procurement) due to high connectivity and related challenges.

Corruption/ sextortion, forced sexual favour, "double bribery" and/or other forms of sexual corruption are perceived to be widespread.

Others are weak bargaining power, women’s limited skills; and limited ownership of long-term assets [ for collateral].

Tanzania’s Public Procurement Policy (2012) strives to: Create a well- functioning, competitive, accountable, and transparent procurement system.

Prompt and secure the confidence of all procuring entities and discourage socio-economic exclusion including gender-based discrimination

Public Procurement Policy: 30 percent of annual procurement budget to support special groups; 10 percent youth, 10 percent people with disabilities, 5 percent women and 5 percent elderly.

For his part, Researcher and Project Coordinator with Women and Social Protection Tanzania (WSP), Habambi Philemon said that due to limited knowledge and skills to access, and use TANePS, only 9.5 percent of the WSMEs are skilled enough to access and use the TANePS.

Only 5.51 percent won competitive government contracts, while 94.52 percent never won in the past two years.

20.25 percent of WSMEs reported certification/registration into TANePS as a major setback to access government tenders.

11.98 percent reported limited technical skills to fill tenders in the procurement system.

For intervention WSP has worked with the Public Procurement Regulatory Authority (PPRA} to train WSMEs on how to access and use TANePS, skills training for WSMEs on bidding.

He said that over 384 WSMEs from all districts in Dar es Salaam region have undergone training on how they would address all those challenges.

Senior Visiting Research Fellow with Repoa, Prof. PaschaelMihayo suggested that in order for women entrepreneurs to address challenges facing them they need to increase efforts to understand policies and legal framework related to public procurement.

They also need to network and share information among themselves so that they can bid for public procurement contracts.

They should learn from successful businessmen who are more experienced in the field.

Furthermore, they should try to work at the basis of intergenerational exchange. In the sense that, they should learn from young people and teach them how they can also become successful.