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Government Procurement Data Widgets for South African News Publishers

Embed live South African government procurement data on your news site — free. Award feeds & sector trends for journalists & media publishers. No signup.

Why News Sites & Investigative Journalists Need Live Procurement Data

Government procurement data is one of the richest — and most under-utilised — sources of accountability journalism in South Africa. Every government tender awarded represents a public expenditure decision: who got the contract, for how much, from which department, and in which province. Aggregated over time, this data reveals spending patterns, identifies politically connected contractors, and flags anomalously large or frequent awards that warrant editorial scrutiny.

News sites, investigative journalism platforms, data journalism teams, and current affairs publications that embed live procurement data give their readers something no press release or government statement can provide: independently sourced, continuously updated evidence of where public money is going. The Tenders SA Award Winners Feed surfaces newly awarded government contracts the moment they are published on the official eTenders portal — giving journalists a lead-generating tool that runs without any manual effort.

For general news sites that cover government, governance, and public service delivery, embedding the Provincial Tender Heatmap provides a striking visual representation of where government spending is concentrated geographically — instantly understandable to a general audience. The Sector Trends widget shows budget execution patterns across different government functions, from health and education to infrastructure and defence.

Our widgets are compatible with any CMS used by South African media organisations — WordPress, Ghost, Brightspot, Arc XP, and custom-built editorial platforms. The embed code is a single iframe or JavaScript snippet that can be placed in article templates, sidebar regions, or dedicated data journalism pages. No developer engagement required; any digital editor can install it in minutes.

How News Publishers Use Live Procurement Data

Investigative & Accountability Journalism

Investigative journalism platforms can embed the Award Winners Feed across the site to maintain a live, visible record of government contract awards. Rather than siloing procurement data in a static database tool, the widget surfaces awards as they are published — creating immediate editorial leads. When a large or unusual contract is awarded to a politically connected company, it appears in the feed in real time, enabling faster publishing of follow-up coverage. The feed includes company name, contract value, awarding department, and province — the five data points that drive the vast majority of procurement accountability stories.

General News & Current Affairs Sites

General news sites covering government, politics, and service delivery can embed the Provincial Tender Heatmap as a persistent data widget showing readers where government infrastructure spending is happening. This is particularly effective for news sites with a local or regional focus — a Western Cape news site embedding a province-filtered heatmap provides its readers with a live view of Cape government procurement activity that no other regional publication currently offers. Interactive, data-driven widgets increase time on site and encourage return visits.

Data Journalism & Transparency Portals

Data journalism teams and public spending transparency platforms can use the Sector Trends widget across multiple categories to build a modular government spending dashboard. Each widget covers a different sector — health, education, construction, ICT — and together they create a comprehensive, live view of how the national procurement budget is being distributed. This kind of data journalism infrastructure, built entirely from free Tenders SA widgets, would traditionally require significant data engineering investment.

Build Your News & Journalism Widget

Pre-filtered to News & Journalism. Customise by province, theme, and widget type.

Build Your Widget

Configure your widget, preview it live, then copy the embed code.

Configure Widget

Live Preview
Your Embed Code
<iframe
  src="https://tenders-sa.org/embed/heatmap"
  width="100%" height="400"
  frameborder="0" loading="lazy"
  title="TenderSA Intelligence Widget">
</iframe>
<p style="font-size:11px;color:#6b7280;margin-top:4px;text-align:right;">Data: <a href="https://www.tenders-sa.org" target="_blank" rel="noopener" style="color:#007A5E;">Tenders-SA.org</a></p>

Platform Integration Guides

Step-by-step instructions for WordPress, Shopify, JavaScript, and other platforms.

Pure JS / Node.js

Paste the <div> where you want the widget, add the <script> tag once before </body>. Works in any React, Vue, Next.js, or Nuxt.js application.

<div data-tendersa-widget
  data-type="heatmap">
</div>
<script src="https://tenders-sa.org/tendersa-widget.js" async defer></script>
<p style="font-size:11px;color:#6b7280;margin-top:4px;text-align:right;">Data: <a href="https://www.tenders-sa.org" target="_blank" rel="noopener" style="color:#007A5E;">Tenders-SA.org</a></p>

South African Government Procurement — Key Numbers for Journalists

3,000+
Tenders published monthly (national)

Across all departments & provinces

R800bn+
Annual public procurement estimate

National Treasury estimate

Hourly
Data update frequency

From official eTenders portal

9 / 9
Provinces with active tenders

Full national coverage

Frequently Asked Questions — News Publisher Widgets

Is the tender award data reliable enough for journalism?

All data is sourced from the South African government's official eTenders portal, which is the authoritative source for public procurement records. Tenders SA aggregates and standardises this data without modification. For investigative purposes, individual awards can always be cross-referenced against the source on etenders.gov.za.

Can I embed an Award Winners Feed that shows a specific sector or province?

Yes. The Award Winners Feed can be configured by province using the widget builder on this page. For sector filtering on the Winners Feed, use the JavaScript SDK embed with a data-category attribute, or access the raw data via the REST API for full programmatic control.

Does the widget work inside article templates?

Yes. The iframe embed code can be placed inside any article template, sidebar region, or custom HTML block. Most CMS platforms (WordPress, Ghost, Brightspot, custom-built) support HTML embeds natively.

Is there historical data available for investigative research?

The widget displays current and recently awarded tenders. For historical procurement research and trend analysis, the full Tenders SA platform at tenders-sa.org provides access to archived awards and company intelligence tools.

Can we republish data from the widget in articles?

Data from the official eTenders portal is public record. Attribution to "Source: South African government eTenders portal via Tenders-SA.org" is appreciated but not legally required for factual data.

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