When awarding tenders for government projects it was important not only to look at the issues of race and gender representivity, but also at the tender specifications, Finance Minister Trevor Manuel said on Tuesday.
Speaking in the National Council of Provinces during question time, Manuel said one of the worst things he had seen was a road that was built where the contractors had met the gender and race specifications but had not met the specification of being able to construct the road. The road disappeared within two years.

While the minister did not indicate where the road had been, he said the disappearance of the road was not in the interests of the inhabitants of the area who used the road.

Manuel also noted that he had visited the home of an Mpumalanga resident - who had received a state-subsidised home - and it was poorly constructed. It had been explained to him that it had been built by an empowered construction firm.

He said this was wrong.

"We can't do that to poor people," he said.
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I have memories of sitting in a meeting looking at IT and data management requirements for a SETA. There were only two tenders that could meet the spec - and yet there were certain parties that were unhappy because neither were black owned. They actually wanted us to go with a tender from a company that plainly could not do the job.