With more than 20 years of regulating of the lotteries and sports pools industry, the NLC continues to be a catalyst in changing the lives of millions of South Africans and an economic contributor in various sectors of our economy.
We recognise, however, that the accountability and responsibility of all businesses are frequently subject to question. In our South African context, the loss of trust in both public and private organisations is stark. The manifest failures of corporate governance and business ethics in this arena has only increased the need for transparency and accountability.
In line with relevant regulation and our constitutional directive, we strive to ensure that our procurement strategy supports a system that is fair, equitable, transparent, competitive and cost-effective. Our journey towards zero irregular, fruitless and wasteful expenditure is critical in achieving this aim. For the NLC, this begins with a stakeholder inclusive approach and proper planning – seeking to deeply understand the needs of the end-user of goods and services before advertising to suppliers, enabling a transparent and informed process. Furthermore, we ensure that fit-for-purpose governance structures are in place, such as our Bid Committees, which offers evaluation and adjudication in the process, playing an oversight role to ensure that our processes are compliant and transparent in line with relevant legislation and supply chain management prescripts.
While a do-no-harm approach is a critical part of our procurement initiatives to maintain our social licence to operate, ensuring our actions support maximum positive impact is also vital in supporting our broader aim of being a catalyst for social upliftment.
Given the key role that small businesses and preferential procurement play in stimulating economic activity, as well as creating employment and advancing broad-based empowerment, the NLC continues to support its suppliers through expedited payment turnaround times. We not only fulfil the regulatory requirements of the PFMA by paying suppliers within 30 days, we have taken this further by developing an internal payment policy that prioritises payment to SMMEs within 14 days. This policy takes into account the cash flow issues that most small businesses face, and the effort is undertaken to support their ongoing sustainability as critical contributors to South Africa’s economic growth.
This endeavour is also supported by our procurement automation process, which began in 2015. Automating our procurement processes has enabled greater efficiency and transparency across the Group. To advance the automation process, we performed a needs analysis and shared the findings with our ICT team to develop an implementation strategy in the year ahead.
Furthermore, we support our suppliers through enterprise supplier development program. In this financial year, we sought to increase our impact by initiating a strategy to tailor-make support through engagement and targeted initiatives, recognising the impact that thriving small businesses can make in communities. We began this focused intervention in the smaller provinces as the NLC recognizes that suppliers in the relatively smaller provinces may not have equal opportunities to participate in the economy, thereby stimulating economic activity in such provinces and ensuring equitable participation in the economy across the country.