DA’s Mat Cuthbert unpack on our Economic Inclusion for All Bill

Added: 2026-05-12

[00:00:00]House Chairperson, today we stand here to debate the future of empowerment policy in our country.

[00:00:07]The question before us is not whether we must redress the injustices of the past, but rather how we do so to ensure we build a more inclusive South Africa for all.

[00:00:17]Because after 50 years of black economic empowerment laws and policies, we must confront an uncomfortable truth.

[00:00:25]These policies have failed. Not because the goal of empowerment is wrong, but because the system designed to achieve it is fundamentally flawed.

[00:00:34]Instead of broadening opportunity, BEE has too often enriched politically connected, while millions of South Africans remained locked out of the economy.

[00:00:45]And this failure is not accidental. It is structural because BEE was built on the same narrow ownership model that excludes far more people than it includes. It prioritizes rewarding malicious compliance over real economic outcomes. It has created an incentives for fronting, rent-seeking, and political gatekeeping. And in doing so, it has discouraged investment, stifled growth, and undermined job creation.

[00:01:12]The consequences of this system have been laid bare for all to see on our television screens through the work of the Zondo Commission. The Commission has shown how procurement rules were bent to award a 360 million rand contract to politically connected service providers such as Bosasa at Matlala at vastly inflated prices with little regard for value or delivery.

[00:01:36]But more importantly, it revealed a broader pattern where contracts were awarded not on merit or capacity, but on political connection.

[00:01:44]What is dressed up as empowerment is nothing more than a mechanism for extraction and abuse.

[00:01:51]And honorable House Chairperson, the results speak for themselves. Fixed investment is at a meager 14%.

[00:01:59]We have an unacceptable 42% unemployment rate, and the economic growth is at a sluggish 1%.

[00:02:07]And most importantly, millions of South Africans remain excluded from economic opportunity.

[00:02:13]Now, House Chairperson, empowerment and growth are not mutually exclusive. We can and we must achieve both, but doing so requires a fundamentally different approach, and that's why this bill matters, as it offers us a different path.

[00:02:29]The Economic Inclusion for All Bill seeks to fundamentally reform how empowerment is measured and achieved in South Africa. It does so by amending our public procurement framework to replace a broken system that rewards compliance and connections with one that rewards socioeconomic impact. It is a departure from narrow procurement model towards one that actually targets disadvantage, not just race, and expands opportunity for all.

[00:02:56]This will enable us to make optimal use of the 1.2 trillion rand public procurement budget to deliver services and investment in our communities. And most importantly, it aligns with [clears throat] what South Africa urgently needs, which is growth, jobs, and inclusion.

[00:03:14]This bill has not been developed in isolation. Last year, we wrote to all parties represented in the house, inviting them to engage with and support this legislation. We did this because empowering people is not a partisan issue. It is a matter of national importance.

[00:03:31]Furthermore, we engaged through Nedlac with organized business, labor, and civil society to help us find common ground.

[00:03:38]And we also opened the bill for public comment, so that South Africans themselves could help shape the future of what empowerment should look like.

[00:03:47]This legislation has been tested, interrogated, and strengthened through all of our consultations. And if we are serious about building an inclusive economy, we must be willing to reach across the aisle to build a new empowerment system that works for all.

[00:04:02]But, House Chair, we must be clear about what empowerment truly means.

[00:04:06]Empowerment is not simply ownership on paper. It is not a box to be ticked or an equity deal to be structured. Real empowerment is the ability of ordinary South Africans to access opportunity, develop skills, find work, and ultimately build a better life for themselves and their families. It's about economic inclusion that does not depend on your proximity to power.

[00:04:29]And that is why this bill fundamentally reframes empowerment policy. Instead of asking, "Who are you connected to?" it asks, "What impact are you making in your community?" And rather [clears throat] than rewarding racial identity alone, it rewards social contribution and targets real disadvantage.

[00:04:46]Most importantly, it seeks to include millions and not just an elite few.

[00:04:52]>> [clears throat] >> At the heart of this bill is a new outcomes-based scorecard that changes how government awards tenders for goods and services. It introduces a procurement system that is fair, transparent, competitive, and cost-effective, fully aligned with section 217 of the Constitution.

[00:05:10]It aligns South Africa's public procurement framework with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, ensuring that every rand of public spending contributes not only to service delivery, but to reducing poverty, expanding opportunity, and building a more inclusive economy. To give effect to this, the bill replaces race-based procurement mechanisms with a simplified outcomes-driven preference points system. It removes rigid set-asides, pre-qualification barriers, and sub-contracting contracting rules that have too often enabled abuse and inflated prices. Under this model, companies are rewarded for what they actually do to advance economic inclusion in South Africa. It rewards companies that create jobs. It rewards companies that invest in infrastructures in our communities. It rewards companies that develop new skills and allow the marginalized to climb up the opportunity ladder.

[00:06:02]It rewards companies that support small businesses and helps them grow. And critically, it rewards companies that broaden ownership in meaningful ways, including through employee share ownership programs that give workers a real stake in the success of the enterprises they help to build.

[00:06:20]This is a fundamentally different approach to the narrow equity deals of the past. It's about expanding ownership for all, not concentrating it with a politically connected few. It's about empowering all workers, not politically connected intermediaries. And it is about ensuring that the benefits of growth are enjoyed by more South Africans. And this is most critical to the DA.

[00:06:44]In practical terms, the scorecard is built on three pillars.

[00:06:48]First, value for money, ensuring that the state procures goods and services efficiently and at the right price.

[00:06:56]Second, economic inclusion, which measures real contributions to social impact such as job creation, skills development, and infrastructure investment. And third, it aims to disqualify those who have engaged in fraud, corruption, or misrepresentation.

[00:07:12]Under the current system, procurement has too often served as a convenient gateway to corruption. From Tembisa hospital to the broader state capture project. What we need is a system that rewards value for money in procurement and economic inclusion, not political connections. We know that much will be said by those who seek to protect the existing system of exclusion.

[00:07:35]We will be told that the DA wants to abandon empowerment. We will be told that the DA wants to ignore history. And we will be told that the DA is anti-redress.

[00:07:46]But house chairperson, nothing could be further from the truth.

[00:07:50]The DA is unashamedly committed to committed to redressing the injustices of our past and using public policy to achieve this. However, we cannot continue with the same failed policies that have prevented empowerment from reaching those who need it most. We must move away from using race as a crude measure of disadvantage and instead focus on addressing actual poverty to help those who remain systematically excluded from opportunity.

[00:08:16]This ensures that empowerment is no longer a privilege for the connected few, but a lived reality for many. We must confront the simple truth that there is no empowerment without economic growth and there is no way to achieve meaningful redress without a growing inclusive economy.

[00:08:33]For too long we have considered these objectives as mutually exclusive when in fact they're deeply interconnected.

[00:08:41]The DA's bill aims to bring these goals together by ensuring that empowerment drives investment, that investment drives growth and growth expands opportunity for all South Africans.

[00:08:53]Honorable members, we face a stark choice. We can continue down the current path where empowerment enriches the connected while millions remain excluded or we can choose a new path, one that places opportunity, dignity and inclusion at the center of our economy.

[00:09:10]This new path will build an economy where empowerment is measured not by benefits on paper, but by those lifted out of poverty and into opportunity. An economy that works not for a select few, but for all.

[00:09:23]South Africans do not want a system that further empowers the connected. They want a system that empowers them.

[00:09:30]Today is our opportunity to deliver that. I thank you.