Johannesburg — AFRICAN countries such as SA must have clean and transparent tender processes that offer equal opportunity to all bidders, a senior visiting US trade official said yesterday.

Making tender processes legitimate, along with harmonising the widely varying tariffs among countries of the region, were "challenges" US assistant commerce secretary Suresh Kumar cited to be overcome to increase trade levels between the US and sub-Saharan Africa.

Kumar led a trade delegation to SA with representatives of eight US companies. His comments suggest SA's problems of tenders awarded to allies of the ruling African National Congress, and the quick and opaque route to riches this offers the country's "tenderpreneurs", are not going unnoticed by would-be foreign investors.

The South African government plans to spend R846bn on public infrastructure investment over the next three years. The question arises whether this would offer value for money for taxpayers and the poor, who desperately needed services such as roads, water and electricity.

Therefore, how these tenders were managed and awarded would be crucial to the perception SA created for itself.

Speaking to journalists in Johannesburg late yesterday, Kumar said his delegation - the first in two years and the first under the Obama administration - was raising the issue in SA and in other countries.

"We have been clear in all discussions with all governments," he said. "Here as also elsewhere."

His comments were not a consequence of complaints voiced by US companies that had tried and failed to get South African tenders, Kumar said. "This is not a response to any complaint. It is a response to the ongoing work everyone of us needs to do."

Last week the Obama administration unveiled its national export initiative, a plan to double US exports over the next five years and create jobs.

As the world sought to emerge from recession, the potential gains from the initiative were as important for Africa as they were for the US, Kumar said.

"These goals are absolutely relevant to SA and Africa today."