The head of the African National Congress’ Economic Transformation Committee Enoch Godongwana has urged organised black business to sharpen its arguments with regard to how the Preferential Procurement Policy Framework Act (PPPFA) could be made more supportive of economic transformation.

Speaking in Gauteng to members of the Black Business Council (BBC), which viewed the PPPFA’s heavy weighing towards price and quality in the evaluation of tenders as an impediment to fully leveraging black economic-empowerment spin-offs from government procurement, Godongwana said it was inadequate for black business to simply reject the legislation.

“As business you have to present a sophisticated argument,” Godongwana said, adding that lobbying efforts could not be reduced to slogans such as “away with the PPPFA”.

He said the ANC government would review the legislation, mindful of the fact that the Constitution insisted that public institutions conducted procurement in a fair and transparent manner.

“But the very same Constitution does not preclude you from positive discrimination. In other words, a discrimination which is intended to redress the imbalances of the past.”

He urged the BBC to develop arguments around how South Africa’s procurement system could apply such positive discrimination within the bounds of the Constitution.

BBC VP Sandile Zungu acknowledged that the organisation, which was re-established in 2012, owing to unease among black businesspeople about whether its views were being fully expressed through Business Unity South Africa, had failed to invest in research capacity.

He argued that the BBC should be providing “thought leadership” on a range of issues, but that it still needed to develop the institutional capacity to provide such leadership.

Nevertheless, government’s “begrudging” acceptance of the need to review the PPPFA was chalked up as a success for the organisation, as was the creation of a dedicated Small Business Ministry in the latest administration.

“That was our achievement,” Zungu insisted, while acknowledging that the jury was still out on whether the Ministry was truly delivering a new deal for black entrepreneurs. “But it’s too early to cast aspersions.”