Government has in the past three years pumped in N$ 1 billion in the public procurement process to promote locally registered companies and hopes to continue on that trend to promote sustainable job creation. This was said by Central Procurement Board of Namibia (CPBN) Procurement Specialist Rebecca Haipinge during a media induction at Swakopmund on Saturday. Haipinge said CPBN has implemented strict guidelines and policy interventions to make sure that state-owned entities and government agencies prioritise buying local products and services. “At least our minimum target is to make sure that government-owned entities abide by public procurement policies and also understand the vision of integrity and accountability in the procurement processes to deal decisively with corruption,” she said. She noted that in contrast, Namibia spent N$ 730 million procuring services and goods from foreign-owned companies in the past three years. On the same note, Head of the Procurement Policy Unit and Deputy Executive Director in the Ministry of Finance, Francois Brand said the ministry is making frantic efforts to have a deliberate local procurement process that allows the local economy to grow and withstand shocks. “We are not just pushing for local procurement, but the idea is to make sure that we promote sustainability of Namibian companies and also seriously promote local job creation,” he said. Brand also emphasised that the government is pushing to weed out corruption and malpractices in the public procurement system for the benefit of the local economy and to stimulate confidence from the public. There is, however, a dire need to continually train civil servants on procurement processes because the procurement system is something new to most government employees. “You will find that sometimes it takes longer to procure something that only meant to take a short time,” he highlighted. CPBN is mandated to procure on behalf of public entities who exceed their allocated threshold in a competitive and transparent manner.