The Institute of Race Relations (IRR) has welcomed the Treasury’s announcement that it has granted exemptions from race-based procurement tests for new contracts offered by Eskom and Transnet – but warns that the relief will be short-lived if the Employment Equity Amendment Bill (EEB) is allowed to become law.
The IRR has urged President Cyril Ramaphosa to exercise his veto and send the draft bill back to Parliament for a re-think.
In a statement, the IRR said that while it welcomed this week’s announcement by Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana – which followed the February ruling of the Constitutional Court, striking down regulations that disqualified companies from bidding for government contracts on the basis of race – the EEB ‘will resurrect the pre-disqualification criteria that were just struck down as unconstitutional’.
The IRR said: ‘Minister Godongwana is well justified to exempt SOEs from “pencil-test procurement” procedures that insult the dignity of black people. Surveys commissioned by the IRR consistently show that roughly 80% of South Africans, including 80% of black South Africans, would prefer job-seekers to be appointed by merit, a better alternative to perpetuating the ignoble idea that some people are inadequate because of their appearance.
‘Moreover, the State Capture Report highlighted the “inevitable tension” between what it calls “maximum value-for-money” and what the IRR calls “pencil-test procurement policies”. The State Capture Report clearly identifies that “the primary national interest is best served when the government derives maximum value-for-money in the procurement process and procurement officials should be so advised.”’
Godongwana was ‘empowered to grant indefinite exemptions from “pencil-test procurement” by statute if this serves the public interest, which the State Capture Report indicates it does’.
‘Unfortunately, the Employment Equity Amendment Bill (EEB), which is shortly to appear on President Cyril Ramaphosa’s desk, will resurrect the pre-disqualification criteria that were just struck down as unconstitutional and once again threaten what the State Capture Report called “the primary national interest”. This is why the IRR calls on President Ramaphosa to follow in Godongwana’s pragmatic footsteps and veto the EEB before it comes into force.’
Said IRR head of campaigns Gabriel Crouse: ‘Godongwana took one small step for poor people who think earning a wage is more important than pencil tests. Ramaphosa’s veto would be a giant leap for the whole country, which deserves a government that puts service before all else every time it spends a cent paid in tax.’
Details of the IRR petition to President Ramaphosa are available here.