The Constitutional Court declared the Act invalid in September 2026. The existing framework remains in force — and the readiness work institutions have done is far from wasted.
On 17 September 2026, the Constitutional Court unanimously declared the Public Procurement Act (Act 28 of 2024) invalid, finding that Parliament failed to facilitate adequate public participation after making material amendments to the Bill. Because the Act had never been brought into operation, the Court saw no need to suspend its order — the invalidity took effect immediately, and the procurement reform project returns to Parliament.
The immediate effect is continuity, not chaos. The framework that governed procurement before the Act — the PFMA and MFMA supply chain provisions, the Preferential Procurement Regulations of 2022 and National Treasury's instruction notes — was never displaced and remains fully in force. The draft General Public Procurement Regulations published in April 2026 fall away with the Act they were built on. Institutions that paused policy updates "pending the new Act" should un-pause them: the current rules are the rules, for the foreseeable future.
The Court did not fault what the Act said — it faulted how it was passed. Nothing in the judgment declares consolidation of procurement law, strategic procurement planning or preferential procurement unconstitutional. Parliament may re-enact the legislation after a proper public participation process, and National Treasury has signalled that procurement reform remains on the agenda. A future Act is likely to look much like the last one. The direction of travel — strategic sourcing, professionalised SCM, stronger transparency — has not changed.
Institutions that invested in readiness — cleaning spend data, building category strategies, strengthening bid committee governance, capacitating SCM units — lost nothing in September. Those capabilities improve compliance and value for money under the current framework, and they will shorten the transition whenever the successor Act arrives. The institutions that treated readiness as a filing exercise, by contrast, now have an opportunity to do the real work before the next deadline appears.
First, re-anchor compliance in the current framework: confirm your SCM policy, delegations and committee structures are aligned to the PFMA or MFMA, the 2022 Regulations and the latest instruction notes — not to a draft regime that no longer exists. Second, keep building the fundamentals: spend analytics, demand planning, contract management and SCM skills serve any regime. Third, watch the re-enactment process: when the Bill returns to Parliament, the public participation the Court insisted on will be a genuine opportunity to shape it — and this time every institution should use it.
Nakede helps procuring institutions stay compliant under the current framework while staying ready for reform — SCM health checks, strategic sourcing and category management, and SCM capacitation across government. Talk to us about where your institution stands.
Our specialists work on these challenges every day. We would welcome the conversation.
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