SBD 9: the Certificate of Independent Bid Determination
What SBD 9 certifies, the Competition Act rule behind it, which blanks you fill, and why it was withdrawn in 2022 but still appears in bid packs.
SBD 9 is a certificate that your bid was put together independently; without consultation, communication or agreement with any competitor about prices, the intention to bid, or the terms of the bid. It exists because section 4(1)(b)(iii) of the Competition Act 89 of 1998 prohibits collusive bidding outright.
What you fill in
- the bid number and description
- the name of the institution that invited the bid
- the name of the bidder, on whose behalf the certificate is made
- by hand: signature, position and date
SBD 9 has no blank for the signatory’s name. It identifies them by signature, position and the name of the bidder. The rest of the form is a set of numbered statements you certify as true; among them that everyone whose signature appears is authorised to sign, and that the bid was determined independently. If you bid as a joint venture or consortium, the form’s footnote covers how the certificate applies.
SBD 8 vs SBD 9
SBD 8 is about the bidder’s past: restricted-supplier listings, tender defaults, fraud convictions and terminated contracts. SBD 9 is about this bid: no collusion. They usually travel together.
Withdrawn in 2022, still requested
SBD 9, like SBD 8, was replaced by the revised SBD 4 (Bidder’s Disclosure) under National Treasury SCM Instruction Note 3 of 2021/22, effective 31 March 2022. The revised SBD 4’s general declaration carries SBD 9’s independent-bid-determination wording almost verbatim, so on paper the certificate is now part of SBD 4.
Departments still ship SBD 9 anyway. If it is in your bid pack, complete it. The wording TenderFill uses was checked word for word across two independent sources, including the copy National Treasury still hosts in its legislation library, and they matched; clause numbering, footnote and signature block.
Free, no sign-up
Fill in SBD 4 and SBD 9 now
Answer the questions, download both forms filled in and flattened, sign by hand. Nothing you type is kept.
Open the free SBD 4 + SBD 9 toolWhat TenderFill does not do
- It checks your company’s readiness, not your bid. It reads the tender pack you upload and checks your company’s records and documents against it. It does not read or judge the bid you submit, and it may miss a requirement: the tender document is the authority.
- It does not guarantee compliance. Every pack requires your review before submission. You must still check signatures, pricing and tender-specific instructions.
- Your department’s own forms take precedence. Many bid packs ship their own layout of the SBD forms, and SBD 1 asks for bids on the official forms provided, not retyped. If your bid pack includes its own version of a form, fill in theirs; the Field Answer Sheet tells you what to write where.
- It fills the standard municipal forms, not a municipality’s own. For a municipal tender the pack is MBD 1, 4, 6.1, 7.2, 8 and 9 as National Treasury publishes them. Many municipalities issue their own versions, especially of MBD 4; fill in theirs from the Field Answer Sheet. It does not fill MBD 7.1 or 7.3, the goods and works contract forms, or any MBD 3 pricing schedule.
- It does not prepare a joint venture’s bid as one. Each party to a joint venture or consortium needs its own pack, and the tender will usually want the signed JV agreement too.