Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana has dismissed suggestions that new preferential procurement regulations, published on November 4, have scrapped black economic empowerment (BEE) and local content as evaluation criteria in public procurement. Instead, he says the new regulations, which come into effect from January 16, have been published to ensure that organs of State, including government departments and State-owned enterprises, determine their own preferential procurement policies, as is required by law and confirmed in a February 2022 Constitutional Court judgment.