WESTERN CAPE. – The Constitutional Court has declared the public procurement law invalid after finding that the parliamentary process did not allow sufficient public participation. The court also ordered that the costs of the application be paid by the president, the speakers of the National Assembly and National Council of Provinces, as well as the provincial legislators who opposed the application.
Geordin Hill-Lewis, mayor of Cape Town, has welcomed the judgment and says the City argued that the law was unlawfully adopted due to insufficient public participation and parliamentary consideration. He says the law could have created greater administrative burden for municipalities and affected the ability to respond quickly to urgent water, sanitation, electricity, waste and environmental issues, according to the City. The City further argued that the law would have centralised certain aspects of public procurement under a national public procurement office. The court found that the legislation, which was signed in 2024 but had not yet come into effect, is unconstitutional and invalid. The court further found that parliament did not fulfil its constitutional obligation to facilitate a reasonable public participation process.
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This article is an automatic English translation of a Nuusflits article originally published in Afrikaans. Read the Afrikaans original.
