Small businesses exposed to tendering
Small business operators in Alexandra were exposed to the tendering process to help them access business opportunities from government and the private sector.
A workshop was convened by ENSafrica Legal Services at Sankopano Community Centre. The organisation provides pro bono services to the Alex community on a range of legal, business and social matters.
The workshop was convened in the wake of government’s drive to speed up its plan for radical transformation of the economy. It also involved the city council’s jozi@work programme, which seeks to integrate small business and community co-operatives into the mainstream economy.
The workshop, facilitated by Pippa Reyburn of the legal services firm, exposed the participants to the tendering process.
Reyburn explained that government and some private sector entities preferred to put their work to tender with external service providers.
She said the tenders were either ‘open’, which enabled anyone in a specific sector to bid for the work; ‘closed’, which relates to bids for specialised services; or ‘unsolicited’, which allows service providers to submit bids that may be of interest to a government department or private entity.
She advised the operators to register themselves in the database of government service providers, or a panel for service providers, in order to get preferential consideration when tenders for services were advertised.
Reyburn also urged the operators to register their brand of services to protect their intellectual property against duplication by others.
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