The DA is negotiating with other political parties to pass its Economic Inclusion for All Bill, which would scrap broad-based BE (B-BBEE) and replace it with a poverty-targeted procurement system.
The party introduced the bill’s first reading in parliament this week, marking the start of what DA MPs described as a deliberate push to move the legislation from a private member’s bill into law.
“Our end goal is to get this adopted into law,” said DA chief whip George Michalakis. “We are going to need consensus from other political parties and we’ve already started those conversations.”
The bill proposes replacing “race-based scoring” in public procurement with a system that awards preference points to companies based on measurable community investment — including job creation, skills development, small business integration and infrastructure spending. Poverty levels, measured through existing Living Standards Measure indicators, would replace race as the primary qualifying criterion.
The DA argues that three decades of B-BBEE have failed to deliver broad economic inclusion, pointing to unemployment at 42%, investment at about 14% of GDP and near-stagnant economic growth of about 1%. The party cited testimony from the Madlanga commission as evidence that the current system has become a vehicle for politically connected rent-seeking rather than genuine empowerment.
Modelling shared at the briefing estimates that reforming public procurement along the bill’s lines could save R70bn-R80bn a year, which the DA says could be redirected to frontline services.
The bill’s passage is not guaranteed. As a private member’s bill, it faces a committee process requiring buy-in from coalition partners and, ultimately, the broader parliament. The DA says consultations with political parties and external stakeholders are continuing.
