Procurement Tracker

New regulations gazetted on 4 August 2026 brought to light a host of state-owned entities that had not previously been listed as procuring entities.

Some have been registered and operating for years, while others have been deregistered, including at least two deregistered more than a decade ago but now revived. Some also appear not to have been registered with the Business and Intellectual Property Authority (BIPA) at the time of the gazetting, according to some reporting.

With this new list, the number of procuring state entities has ballooned to about 260, up from about 176.

The introduction of more non-regulator state-owned enterprises increases corruption risks considerably, given the lack of transparency, rampant non-compliance, poor governance and weak oversight.

Most of the new names fall among Category 3 procuring entities, meaning they operate under the lowest procurement value thresholds. One is among Category 2 entities, while the defence industrial conglomerate August 26 Holding Company (Pty) Ltd and its largest subsidiaries are among Category 1 entities.

Interestingly, one of August 26 Holding Company (Pty) Ltd’s lesser-known subsidiaries, Agro-Tour Company, appears on the original 2017 list of categorised procuring entities, in Category 3. Its sister company, Agrotour Development Initiative (Pty) Ltd, appears on the 2026 Category 3 list.

Agro-Tour Company has been listed as a procuring entity since the implementation of the Public Procurement Act of 2015 framework, but appears never to have submitted an annual procurement plan to the Procurement Policy Unit (PPU) for publicising. This is emblematic of the rampant non-compliance and lack of transparency that marks the public procurement landscape.

It is by no means the only newly listed entity to appear guilty of this. The same can be said of the other August 26 companies and the new entries on the 2026 list.

This especially applies to non-regulator entities known to have been operational or active over the last 10 years, such as Namfisa subsidiary Metropol (Pty) Ltd, the National Youth Council of Namibia commercial arm, Bridgehead Group Holdings (Pty) Ltd, the University of Namibia’s Inceptus Holding (Pty) Ltd and the Namibia Qualifications Authority's property holding company, BV Investment Six Hundred and Forty-Five (Pty) Ltd.

That these commercial entities now appear on the list of regulated procuring entities suggests that they have conducted their procurement in the shadows until now.

Two state-owned enterprises deregistered at the same time in 2013 also appear on the 2026 list among Category 3 entities: Namibia Bricks Enterprises (Pty) Ltd and Star Protection Services (Pty) Ltd.

Against this backdrop, a relevant government authority, such as the prime minister or finance minister, needs to step forward and provide:

• An explanation for why the list of procuring entities has expanded considerably.
• An entity-by-entity explainer of the new non-regulator procuring entities.
• An explanation for why specific entities appear in specific categories.

Editor’s note: This op-ed has been shortened for publication. The wording and views of the author have been retained.