CDE Submission | Buying Badly: How the draft procurement regulations will raise costs and deepen corruption
- CDE called on National Treasury to reconsider and withdraw the preferential procurement provisions in its draft public procurement regulations. The core preferential procurement mechanisms in the regulations – set-asides, prequalification and compulsory subcontracting – are likely to increase the cost of everything the state buys, delay delivery and create new opportunities for corruption.
- This forms part of CDE’s formal submission on the draft General Public Procurement Regulations, published by the National Treasury in April for public comment before 15 July 2026.
- CDE argues that two questions should govern any reform of public procurement: whether reform makes the system simpler, and whether it will improve value for money – the state’s ability to buy the right goods and services, at the right time and at the right price, so that public services can actually be delivered. Some of the most consequential provisions of the draft regulations fail on both counts.
- Government should recognise that procurement is not primarily a vehicle for pursuing multiple competing social objectives. It is first and foremost the mechanism through which the state acquires the goods, services and infrastructure required to govern effectively and deliver public services. A procurement system that is excessively complex, restrictive and vulnerable to manipulation ultimately undermines service delivery and public trust in the state.
- While several reforms in the draft are constructive and should be retained, the regulations add substantial new layers of legal and governance complexity to an already overburdened and dysfunctional procurement framework operating in institutions characterised by limited skills, weak oversight, political interference and low trust.
