In an ever changing world, innovation is not only welcome, but ought to be encouraged. Such innovation includes innovations that enhance service delivery by the state, and its entities.
However, more often than not, innovators or entrepreneurs, as the case maybe, would expect to be paid for their innovation or product. Or an NGO may expect to be partly funded for their proposal that will, presumably, help the community. At the same time, government has responsibility to exercise care in the spending of public funds.
Among others, there is the infamous Public Finance Management Act (PFMA) that regulates how government should buy services. The main provisions of the PFMA are that government should, as far as possible, buy products or services using an open and fair competitive bidding process. But there are exceptions that apply in evidently exceptional circumstances. Continue reading “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly of misplaced pitches to government”