Comrade O. Seate
31 October 2025
Public procurement is a critical instrument to develop the productive capacity of our economy. Public procurement should be leveraged to catalyse our industries as the goods and services that the government spend on can be produced locally by small and medium-sized industries. The real benefits of public spending are not the appointed contractors by the government, but the workers who are involved in the value chain of the production of goods and services.
Major industries in South Africa are also the biggest beneficiaries of public procurement as various appointed suppliers buy goods from them; therefore, an argument which seeks to reduce the impact of public procurement to only be at a supply level is a lazy argument from the DA. If we look into the details of the impact of public spending, the intended beneficiaries might not be accruing a significant value in the process, as the producers of goods are mainly white men.
The ANC, in its manifesto, has committed to advancing the development of industries as a key area of job creation. The Public Procurement Act Regulations, which are yet to be published, should enable an enhanced approach to enable public procurement to have targeted support for emerging black industrialists and industries owned by women, youth, and persons with disabilities.
One of the major constraints to economic growth and efforts to tackle unemployment and poverty is the lack of inclusion of the Black Majority as part of the industrialists in the country. Countries that have tackled poverty and unemployment, particularly the Asian Tigers and China all developed the manufacturing capacity of their citizens. This is the phase we need to go through as a Country, and public procurement should support this trajectory. We must get to a level where the state undertakes off-take agreements and appoints panels of manufacturers who supply various goods and services.
The ANCYL of the ANC has been calling for the reindustrialisation of the economy to ensure there is value addition domestically to create jobs, and to ensure industries are developed across the country to ensure jobs are created in all provinces.
Honourable members, let us take the national school nutrition programme as an example. The food inputs consumed in schools should be linked with community and smallholder agricultural farmers within the locations, and the Department of Land Redistribution and the Agriculture Department should have a focused strategy to support food producers. The same model can be applied to other goods. This will practically give meaning to using public procurement to transform the racial dominance in our economy.
The DA in the Western Cape have also contributed to weakening the implementation of the Preferential Procurement framework. The Western Cape Government spent R19.73 billion on procurement during the 2024/25 financial year. Only 57 % is spent on black owned companies, and a small 6 per cent for youth-owned companies and only 34% for women-owned enterprises and only 1% for persons with disabilities. When the DA calls for the removal of race-based public procurement, they, in essence, want the 57%. For black owned companies to decline to be significantly low level, so that the significant majority of suppliers are white.
The ANC has ensured the Public Procurement to ensure it has set asides for different categories to prevent a DA-governed institution to not reducing spending on black owned companies, youth-owned, women-owned and persons with disabilities. Under the Public Procurement Act regulations, the set-asides will ensure the 6 % spent on youth in the Western Cape is significantly increased. The 1% for persons with disabilities will have to be increased, and the spending on women-owned enterprises should be above 40%. The DA Bill seeks to reverse these developments to create an equitable society.
The Western Cape Procurement Data also reflects a concentration of the appointment of Request For Quotations to fewer companies, with 21,404 awards/finalised that benefited only 1668 suppliers. Under their proposed bill, the number, though not equitable, will further decline, benefiting a few companies with concentrated capabilities.
The African National Congress has observed the persistent campaign of the DA to advance the interests of the minority at the expense of the Black Majority.
The refusal of the DA to join efforts to advance the redistribution of wealth in the country is evidence that the party continues to protect the gains of apartheid and intends to reverse the gains of the democratic dispensation.
In relation to major BBBEE transactions, we can confidently report that Black women’s ownership has significantly increased from 20% to 37%, showing progress in gender inclusivity as reported in the 2023/24 financial year. What is concerning is that Black ownership has decreased to 57% down from 59% in the previous year.
We must also state that the DA cannot even project how their policy proposal can lead to tackling asset and income inequality in South Africa. They merely seek to demonise BBBEE while they want it removed for them to take advantage of public expenditure without transforming their own firms. For the ANC, the proposal of the DA and its call is the highest level of betrayal of the constitutional promise. They do not want quotas through employment equity, yet they argue to advance the interests of all South Africans.
South Africans should be vigilant and further interrogate the motives of the DA. We don’t support their campaign and proposed amendment bill.