Over 130 local companies registered at East Manganese Procurement Roadshow
Sitatunga Buyer Quintin Snyder, Menar Group Social Licensing Manager Xolile Mankayi, Menar Corporate Communication Officer Candace Van der Merwe, Menar Business Development Consultant Mampuru Koma, Menar Corporate Communication Officer Sueda Bitmez, Menar Chairman Mpumelelo Mkhabela and Sitatunga Procurement Manager Carmia Pretorius
Sitatunga Resources hosted a Procurement Roadshow near its East Manganese mine at Hotazel, Northern Cape, on 29 April 2021. The roadshow forms part of the company’s commitment to support and include local business by procuring goods and services from locally-based companies. 132 business profiles were received in total, with only 9 of these not registered on the East Manganese database, owing to not meeting the company’s local procurement requirements.
Sitatunga Resources Procurement Manager Carmia Pretorius explained, as the company’s East Manganese mine was a new operation, it was important to establish a local vendor database for the operation. “This roadshow will aid our buyers in having a better understanding of what the local businesses have to offer,” she explains.
The five main categories of types of companies that submitted business profiles were: general supplies, transport, consulting, personal protective equipment and Waste Management.
Carmia says that the purpose of the roadshow was to enlist companies that operate within East Manganese’s host community into the procurement database. Documents were required to confirm that the enlisted companies were genuinely local. The documents included company registration documents, tax clearance certificates, business and service offerings outlines and contact details.
Carmia says that the Procurement Department would like to host such events periodically to ensure as many local companies as possible can be added to the mine’s procurement database. “Adequate planning of these events will be done well ahead of time and communicated. However, in addition to the Procurement Roadshows, we have an email address (procurement@sitatunga.com) where company profiles can be submitted electronically throughout the year.” This email address is monitored and business details are added to different databases.
The Road Show was held in strict accordance with COVID-19 Alert level 1 regulations which included the wearing of face masks, maintaining physical distances of 1.5 metres and observing social gathering number limitations.
