Business Coach

Beware the tender scams

By Edith Mjuluki

A small business owner's set goals are to operate and grow a successful business, despite the products or services offered.

Business owners must set both short-term and long-term goals that include everything from funding and income to expand the business and reaching customers.

Business owners always look for opportunities to grow their businesses and bidding for tenders is one of them.

Since the introduction of tenders to black owned small businesses in South Africa for the supply of goods and services, startups have used this opportunity for growth and development. This includes Request for quotation (RFQ's).

The difference between the formal tender bid and a formal quotation; an RFQ will be for goods or services with a value of between R30,000-00 and R200,000-00 and a competitive tender bid will be for goods or services with a value exceeding R200,000-00.

The requirement to participate in tendering and RFQ is that you are registered with the CSD (Central Supplier Database).

With the intention to participate in this line of business, small business fight a losing battle against high tender and RFQ scams, losing the little they have or losing it all.

The increased lawlessness and scams in respect of tenders and quotations is not receiving much attention in our country.

The state’s property is being used to create false documents such as RFQ's and purchase orders that are fake. This applies to email addresses that looks similar to state email addresses, contact telephone numbers and websites that are fake.

This is a group of syndicates working together to pose as government officials and suppliers. These are professionals and they have studied how the tendering system works.

For some reason they are able to access your records from the same