BEE regulation changes are 'temporary' - Godongwana
Finance Minister, Enoch Godongwana says the amendments to government’s preferential procurement regulations are temporary measures and are not aimed at setting back economic transformation.
A media briefing by the Minister on Tuesday in Pretoria was prompted by several media reports that suggested that government had scrapped the Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) criteria in public procurement.
As per a recently published government gazette amendment, State-owned Entities (SOEs), including national or provincial departments and municipalities, in certain circumstances, no longer have to abide by BEE requirements when tendering.
However, Gondongwana says the new regulations will not impede state organs from doing business with local businesses.
"What these regulations are actually trying to achieve is to give is comply with Section 217 of the Constitution on procurement of goods and services by organs of state, comply with the PPPFA of 2000. Comply with the Constitutional Court judgment of February 2022, on 2017 Regulations. We are not doing away with BEE - in fact, there is no way that we are moving away from Black Economic Empowerment,” he says.
"In essence, the 2022 Regulations, are a placeholder while we finalise the Bill. Among other things, in terms of the 2022 Regulations, an organ of the state must, in the tender documents, stipulate, the applicable preference point system as envisaged in the regulations, and the specific goals in the invitation to submit the tender for which points may be awarded."
The latest regulations published repeal the 2017-regulations which govern the awarding of contracts to tenderers not scoring/do not score the highest points.
The Constitutional Court found the country’s procurement regulations to be invalid.
The ruling in November 2020 has instructed the Minister of Finance Enoch Godongwana to make sweeping changes to the country’s BEE policies.
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