It’s one thing to clinch that first ten million rand tender, and it’s totally another to fulfill the client’s requirements to the letter.
For a black owned company, the obstacles are even more, especially getting the right resources to deliver on time, within schedule and to the exact specifications.
As they are generally resource-constrained, the common oversight amongst black businesses is to look at the tender as working capital and profit, the impact of inflation and the taxman’s dues.
Sibusiso Dlamini* (not his real name), who owns an upcoming construction firm, discovered this the hard way. He confides his agony to Transform SA in a telephone interview.
“My assumption was that the cost of basic things most needed in the project would remain constant: labour, building materials and transport since my firm got the tender. How mistaken I was!
“I realised that I did under quote in the tender submission, and this could have been the very reason my bid was adjudicated to be the most competitive. But I had only fooled myself.
“I have realised that, with the “competitive’ figures I had submitted no one cannot register a profit, not even breakeven,” he bemoans.
Dlamini says he has been forced to cut down costs by hiring manpower who he will have to train on the job and buy cheaper products from suppliers whose integrity cannot always be guaranteed. He acknowledges that this is something does always guarantee that a quality job would be done. He is bracing from complaints from the Department of Public Works.
Pitifully, after adding up the figures Dlamini has realised that he won’t have virtually left to declare as profit. “I am ruing why he did not err on the side of caution by factoring in the impact of potential inflation on the project. I thought this would jeopardise my tender.”
