Compliance
What cidb grading you need for a R2 million contract
The answer has two halves and most contractors only check one, which is why a current registration still loses the appointment at scope review.
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All resources
Procurement & tenders
Technology
Standby generator demand South Africa, as the grid recovers
Eskom's diesel bill is down R4.87 billion and load reduction is down 88.6%. Public buyers are still tendering generators. What a brand should read from that.
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Site & delivery
Refurbishment tender cancelled and re-advertised, then what
Six public buyers have put refurbishment work back on eTenders after an earlier round. What a buyer can find out and change before the second advert.
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Compliance
Return of Earnings deadline, and what a late one costs
File your outstanding Return of Earnings before 31 October 2026, or the Commissioner may assess your firm on an estimate and add a penalty.
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Site & delivery
The money spent before your tender exists
About R1.8 million of preparation at Matjhabeng helped unlock an R800 million DBSA facility, long before any contractor could price it.
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Compliance
Do I need to register with the NHBRC to build houses?
If you build homes in South Africa, the firm registers with the NHBRC and each home is enrolled. Gauteng's next housing lines make that urgent.
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Cost & decisions
Standby generator tenders in South Africa, and the spec
Our catalogue holds 36 public generator lines this week. Who is buying, and the four different points at which a model gets written into the spec.
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Site & delivery
Infrastructure procurement gateway review, after the ruling
The draft regulations that would have made gateway reviews compulsory fell with the Procurement Act, and the risk they targeted did not fall with them.
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Cost & decisions
SANRAL routine road maintenance tender, nine provinces open
SANRAL has at least 40 routine road maintenance contractor lots open in nine provinces, and eleven compulsory briefings fall between 12 and 19 October.
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Compliance
What happens after you apply to a contractor panel
Nothing visible happens for a long stretch. What is running in that time is a set of queries to outside registers, each answering at its own pace.
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Compliance
How to get on a preferred supplier list, and stay on
Getting on a list takes a morning. Being called off one depends on something the Competition Commission has now measured properly.
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Cost & decisions
Tshwane alternative water source RFI, and what to send
Tshwane's RFI on alternative potable water sources closes on 30 October, and the City will use the answers to write the tender specification.
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Compliance
Supplier database registration and where the work hides
The CSD is mandatory and finds you nothing. The work a small firm can win sits on the municipality's own noticeboard, and none of it has to reach eTenders.
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Compliance
Contractor accreditation in South Africa: who grants it
There is no single contractor accreditation in South Africa, only trade registers, each buyer's own list, and the check a client relies on.
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Compliance
How to verify a cidb registration before you appoint
A certificate shows a firm was registered on the day it was printed. The register answers today, and grade, class and status all have to match the job.
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Site & delivery
Structural steel shortage in South Africa, and the waivers
SAISC now backs tariff waivers one ITAC application at a time, and counts steel whose quality is still to be demonstrated as short.
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Compliance
Vendor registration for contractors, after the court ruling
The Constitutional Court struck down the Public Procurement Act on 17 September, so you register exactly where you registered before the ruling.
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Cost & decisions
Client matching for contractors, from closed tenders
A tender that closed with no award posted is a buyer who needed the work done. Five on Gauteng ground from late September 2026, and the call to make.
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Cost & decisions
How to join a contractor panel in South Africa
Six public buyers had built-environment panels open on 29 September 2026, and a panel place is applied for like a tender but paid for like a promise.
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Compliance
Contractor vetting checklist, and what eThekwini skipped
A Special Tribunal set aside housing appointments the SIU valued at around R30 million. Read the ruling backwards and it is a list of the checks nobody ran.
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Property & facilities
Approved contractor list, and who builds one
Eighteen panels on one September day's tender board, and a landlord with 18.6% of its Gauteng offices empty. Both sides were building lists.
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Compliance
Contractor compliance check South Africa: five registers
The check is the same five registers for one firm or twenty. A panel makes it recur, and a buyer running seven identical tenders pays for it seven times.
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Cost & decisions
Subcontractor matching, and the mall that used 17 SMMEs
iTonka Square in Springs was rebuilt in eight months by a trade list anyone could read. By opening day, every one of those packages was long gone.
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Cost & decisions
Contractor matching service when the tender comes back empty
Public buyers re-advertise the same refurbishment and the same maintenance contract. The board shows why a second advert rarely fixes the first.
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Cost & decisions
Find vetted contractors in Johannesburg, trade by trade
Start with the trade, because the shortage is uneven. Here is what our network could put on a Johannesburg site on 21 September 2026, and where it could not.
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Compliance
Standard for Uniformity, and what it tells a client to check
The draft second edition does not touch your grading. It rewrites how every organ of state applies the register. Comments closed 30 September 2026.
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Compliance
How to upgrade cidb grading, and how long it takes
One completed contract at the next grade's track record minimum, the turnover and capital beside it, and a 21-day pack. The grade follows the work.
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Compliance
What does cidb 6CE mean, and who asks for it
A grade and a class, read together. In September 2026 one panel drew its line at 6CE, and the rest of the board drew it everywhere from grade 1 to grade 9.
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Site & delivery
cidb grading levels explained, against real adverts
Nine grades, nine ceilings. The grade that earns is the one that matches work actually being advertised, not the one at the top of the table.
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Cost & decisions
Steel safeguard duty and what it does to your rate
ITAC added South Korean hot-rolled steel to the safeguard on 4 September 2026 at 11 percent, and the origin of your fabricator's coil now sets part of the rate.
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Cost & decisions
What your spec is worth in a municipal tender
Municipal distributors sell 44% of South Africa's electricity, and a correctly specified protection device only survives their tender if the document says so.
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Compliance
Contractor panel registration: what to have ready
The application takes an hour. What takes three weeks is chasing documents that could not be issued until something else existed first.
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Cost & decisions
How long can retention be held in South Africa?
Retention runs on your contract's clock, not on a statutory one, and on a R3 million job the 5% still held at month nine is R150 000 of yours.
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Compliance
The cidb blacklist and your live contract
The Minister counts 52 contractors off the cidb register against two in its first 22 years, and the gazette is already ahead of him.
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Site & delivery
Construction work in the R2 trillion pipeline
Of 263 projects worth R1,99 trillion, the 54 in documentation are the ones that become tenders. The 82 under construction are somebody else's order book.
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Compliance
The restricted suppliers list follows the director
Treasury has recorded 35 companies and 45 directors after Eskom's referrals, and a listed name walks into the next company you register.
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Compliance
How to vet a contractor in South Africa
Four of the five checks that decide whether a contractor may lawfully work on your site are free, and most clients run only one of them.
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The Arabella Brief
What changed this week, and what it costs you on Monday.
One email on a Friday, covering the week from Friday to Thursday so the week is closed when it is written. What actually changed, everything with a date on it, one development run through what it means for a contractor with forty people, and what we got wrong. A thin week is a short issue.