The Institute of Race Relations (IRR) has published a draft bill that is in effect a “clean, constitutional, and pro-growth replacement” for the current procurement regime.
Details of the bill were spelled out in a webinar discussion yesterday between author of the draft law, IRR Fellow Gabriel Crouse, and the IRR’s head of Strategic Communications, Hermann Pretorius.
Both emphasised the need for national debate on value-for-money procurement reform.
In a statement, the IRR says the fundamental message from the webinar is that South Africa “must choose between continuing a procurement system that rewards connections at the cost of service delivery and adopting one that puts those in need first and rewards value and actual delivery”.
Says Pretorius: “The point system of the last 20 years of picking favourites based on race-based discrimination has failed South Africans. It has inflated costs, encouraged corruption, and slowed service delivery to those most in need. The IRR’s pioneering yet common-sense Value for Money Bill finally gives full effect to section 217 of the Constitution by making value for money the decisive criterion for every cent of public procurement spending in the country.”
The IRR points out that the Value for Money Bill replaces the complex points-based preference system with a single, transparent standard: the tender that offers the best value over its full life cycle wins. It retains limited and transparent tie-break preferences, such as proven delivery, employment intensity, financial soundness, and a short transitional race-based tie-break, for cases where bids are equal on value.
The Bill also mandates:
- Digital transparency: publication of all awards, reasons, and contracts on a public repository managed by National Treasury.
- Monthly reporting: open data on all tenders, enabling media and civil society oversight.
- Fast payments: an e-invoicing system requiring government to pay valid invoices within five days.
- Strict accountability: criminal penalties and debarment for bid-rigging, collusion, and falsification.
“True transformation comes when taxpayers’ money buys quality, efficiency, and opportunity,” Pretorius adds
“The people most reliant on public services, especially the poor, benefit most when corruption and waste are eliminated. BEE premiums in public procurement has not only entrenched an elitist form of fake transformation, but has also cost the country hundreds of billions. South Africa today is a poorer country with fewer services delivered to vulnerable people because of the fake transformation designed into the rigged procurement system that eschews value for money.”
Pretorius concludes: “The ice is broken. The conversation must now happen. We call on Parliament, business, and civil society to back the constitutional standard of fair, competitive, cost-effective procurement over patronage politics.”
You can read the Value for Money Bill and explanatory notes here, and watch yesterday’s here: