DA gazettes Bill seeking to cancel B-BBEE for public comment

The Democratic Alliance’s (DA) Public Procurement Amendment Bill, which seeks to repeal the Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment (B-BBEE) Act, has been gazetted for public comment.

The proposed Bill intends to remove race as a determining factor for companies wishing to do business with the State and replace it with an outcome-driven system.

It also seeks to overhaul the B-BBEE scorecard, eliminating requirements for a company to be a certain percentage black-owned or to have black people in its management to score points.

ALSO READ: DA wants independent review of BBBEE legislation with view to scrapping law

The DA's head of policy, Mathew Cuthbert, argues that empowerment must move away from race-based policies and towards a needs-based approach.

“The gazetting of this Bill is the first step in the legislative process that will bring South Africa a new, inclusive empowerment model ending decades of B-BBEE failure,”Cuthbert said.

“B-BBEE has turned ANC insiders into billionaires, while 44 million South Africans have been relegated to poverty, and twelve million are trapped in unemployment queues. The DA will not allow this to stand any longer, because we care deeply about the people of South Africa.”

Commenting on the DA’s proposed Bill, economist Duma Gqubule said the removal of race-based determinations does not make sense as the country remains unequal along racial lines.

Gqubule cited data from the Commission for Employment Equity, stating: “In the private sector, according to the Commission for Employment Equity, 15% of African representation is in top management. White males – 3.5% of the population – account for 51% of top managers in the private sector. So we are a white-owned and white-managed economy. Race policies got us into this mess and race policies will get us out of this mess.”