Constitutional Court: Western Cape Wins Procurement Act Challenge

Please find English and Afrikaans soundbites by Jan de Villiers MP. Today, the DA Western Cape government won a major Constitutional Court victory, standing up to bad national legislation - and the DA government won. The Constitutional Court has upheld the Western Cape Government's challenge to the Public Procurement Act and declared the legislation unconstitutional and invalid. Keep up with the latest headlines on WhatsApp | LinkedIn The DA believes that government procurement must start with getting the best possible value for the public. We want more competition, more capable businesses competing for government work, less red tape and a procurement system that rewards companies for actually creating jobs, developing skills, supporting small businesses and expanding opportunity. We reject the idea that transformation requires government to sacrifice value for money or build ever more complicated rules around who may compete for public contracts. The Western Cape Government has demonstrated that these are not competing objectives: more than half of provincial procurement spending already goes to black-owned businesses without mandatory set-asides or compulsory subcontracting. That is the DA difference: transformation through opportunity, competition and growth - not transformation through a government tick-box. The DA also believes that decisions about spending should be taken as close as possible to the people affected by them. A capable municipality or province should not have to ask National Government how to buy every bus, build every road or procure every service. National government should set fair constitutional rules, but it should not suffocate functioning governments with a one-size-fits-all system. The DA Western Cape Government went to court because it believed this legislation crossed that line and because Parliament had failed to properly consult South Africans after material changes were made to the law. The Constitutional Court has now upheld the constitutional challenge. For the person standing at a broken traffic light, waiting in a clinic queue, driving over potholes or waiting for a leaking pipe to be repaired, procurement can sound like an abstract government word - but the laws and rules of procurement determine how your taxes are turned into the services you use every day. When government pays too much, you get less, and when competition is restricted, you get fewer choices. This is why the DA government challenged this law, and it won. Get the latest in African news delivered straight to your inbox By submitting above, you agree to our privacy policy . We need to confirm your email address. To complete the process, please follow the instructions in the email we just sent you. There was a problem processing your submission. Please try again later. That is what the DA is fighting for: a government that treats every rand as if it belongs to the hardworking South African who earned it. The DA is proud that it was a government which took that fight all the way to the Constitutional Court and won. Read the original article on DA . AllAfrica publishes around 600 reports a day from more than 90 news organizations and over 500 other institutions and individuals , representing a diversity of positions on every topic. We publish news and views ranging from vigorous opponents of governments to government publications and spokespersons. Publishers named above each report are responsible for their own content, which AllAfrica does not have the legal right to edit or correct. Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica . To address comments or complaints, please Contact us . AllAfrica is a voice of, by and about Africa - aggregating, producing and distributing 600 news and information items daily from over 90 African news organizations and our own reporters to an African and global public. We operate from Cape Town, Dakar, Abuja, Johannesburg, Nairo