Constitutional Court invalidates Public Procurement Act due to lack of public consultation

The Constitutional Court declared a new law aimed at overhauling the state’s tender and procurement system invalid and unconstitutional. The court ruled that Parliament failed to subject a new chapter of the Public Procurement Act to meaningful public participation, despite the law having been signed into law by Cyril Ramaphosa last year. The act, which was never implemented, has now been scrapped from the law books.

The invalidation of the Public Procurement Act disrupts the framework governing how billions of rands of public money are spent annually on service delivery. The court found that Parliament deferred much of its responsibility to the National Treasury, which only responded to a small fraction of the submissions received during the legislative process.