The Democratic Alliance (DA) has tabled the Economic Inclusion for All Bill, proposing to amend the Public Procurement Amendment Act of 2024 and repeal all race-based preferential procurement provisions. The Bill replaces these policies with a framework that targets poverty as the primary measure of disadvantage and rewards bidders for contributing to development outcomes such as job creation, poverty reduction, skills training, and environmental sustainability.

The proposal seeks to align public procurement with the Constitution, ensuring fairness, transparency, and cost-effectiveness. It introduces a value-for-money scoring system weighted toward performance and integrity rather than racial ownership, while providing for the winding down of the Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) Commission within twelve months and removing BEE clauses from existing legislation.

Recent polling by the Social Research Foundation shows that an overwhelming majority of South Africans now favour ending race-based empowerment rules and replacing them with poverty-targeted alternatives. Public sentiment reflects widespread belief that the current BEE model has failed to broaden participation and has benefited only a small elite.

Many economists similarly link traditional BEE and related procurement policies to declining business confidence, low investment, weak growth, and persistently high unemployment. They argue that the policy’s compliance burden, ownership distortions, and rent-seeking incentives have constrained productivity and discouraged enterprise formation.

If adopted, the Economic Inclusion for All Bill would mark a decisive shift toward non-racial, merit-based empowerment. Its implementation could reorient public procurement around measurable inclusion and restore competitiveness to the state’s R1-trillion supply chain.