If MPs fail to challenge President Cyril Ramaphosa on “why South Africans living in poverty should accept that their plight is an acceptable price to pay for the enrichment of a handful of wealthy tenderpreneurs”, they run the risk of being complicit in the “suffering of millions”.
So says IRR Strategic Engagements Manager Makone Maja, who points out in a statement that the quality of life and prospects of employment of millions of South Africans “have been harmed by the damage BBBEE has inflicted on service delivery and investment”.
The IRR has equipped MPs with questions it hopes they will use to hold President Cyril Ramaphosa to account in this week’s State of the Nation Address (SONA) debate –particularly on his “neglecting Chief Justice Zondo’s recommendation that the state maximise value for money in its vast procurement spending”.
The recommendation is contained in the Zondo Commission report on state capture and corruption.
Having written to the President in the run-up to SONA urging him to address the value-for-money principle in his speech, the IRR believes he missed the mark in avoiding the topic.
The IRR notes that while Ramaphosa “made several admissions in his address about the failures of the Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment (BBBEE) policy, which he continues to eagerly promote, he failed to squarely confront inadequacies resulting from non-adherence to value for money”.
The President promised last week that the government would be refining BBBEE “to ensure that it supports greater transformation and inclusive growth”, thus apparently confirming the IRR’s long-held position that BBBEE has so far served narrow interests and stifled growth.
Says Maja: “Members of parliament should seize the opportunity to exercise their constitutional obligation to hold the President accountable in view of these acknowledgements. He must be challenged about why he has defended a policy that even by his own assessment has kept the economy from creating jobs and reducing poverty.”
Questions the IRR has shared with all parliamentarians focus on “why the government has not adopted value for money as the bedrock of public procurement spending; whether the President believes taxpayers are receiving value for money for their taxes, and why South Africans living in poverty should accept that their plight is an acceptable price to pay for the enrichment of a handful of wealthy tenderpreneurs”.
Maja concludes: “Simply reforming BBBEE will not go far enough in reversing the harms it has caused, which range from institutional capture and corruption to declining service delivery and what the President himself described as ‘investment strikes’. There needs to be an overhaul based on legislating value for money in procurement, which the IRR is willing and able to assist with, as it has already codified the policy in its draft legislation, the Value For Money Bill.”