SMME targeted procurement policies in South Africa gets swapped and changed every couple of years before they take hold and assessed against initially set desired outcomes, this makes them unsustainable. As such, it has become necessary for research to be undertaken to investigate those SMMEs that do business with State Owned Enterprises (SOEs), with the aim of establishing whether the preferential procurement policies are supportive of the growth and sustainability of their businesses. The study also sought to further ascertain whether the targeted procurement policies are achieving the objectives they were created for in the first place, which is to promote growth and empowerment through the growing of the SMME businesses or are they non-responsive. Lastly, this study intended to understand whether the continued swapping and changing of the targeted procurement policies is resulting in their unsustainability to grow a sustainable SMME sector in South Africa which in turn raises a question of whether the designing and implementation of these policies is well informed by the actual challenges bedevilling the sector to be able to address these challenges on the ground. The study was a qualitative study that enabled the expression and description of feelings and opinions regarding whether the targeted policies had achieved their objectives and the concerns respondents would express. From the data was collected through interviews, the respondents indicated that the policies were theoretical and do not address the actual challenges that bedevil small businesses in South Africa. If anything, the policies have not attained their set objectives of growing and empowering SMMEs but rather made doing and growing their businesses difficult due to an unfriendly business environment. In addition, high taxes, inflexible labour laws, access to finance, inability to market their companies and products, delayed payments for services rendered are some of the problems faced by SMMEs. The SMME sector is dwindling, the small businesses are folding, and the targeted policies have proved unsustainable. Based on the findings of this study the targeted procurement policies needs to be reviewed and in certain instance overhauled to improve their efficacy. Policymakers need to establish forums where small business raise their concerns, shortcomings of the policies and put forward their ideas of making the policies more beneficial to them. There is a great need to also identify and address impediments pertaining to the operating environment and make it truly pro SMMEs.

Thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree Master of Technology: Construction Management, Department of Construction Management and Quantity Surveying In the Faculty of Engineering, At the Cape Peninsula University of Technology / Sustainable buildings are structures produced to meet the present housing needs of a society without compromising the ability of the future generation to meet their future needs. Based on the findings derived from the reviewed literature, the production process and the operational lifecycle of sustainable buildings promote a healthy well-being for the inhabitants and environmental balance through the effective management of energy, water, land and materials resources at every stage of construction. However, ineffective construction materials procurement strategy was found in literature as a major factor that constrains the production of sustainable buildings; leading to project failures or production cost and time overrun. Thus, the production cost of sustainable buildings is influenced by the total cost of construction materials acquisition, which amounts to about 65% of the total cost of building production. This factor on cost has over the years been a significant barrier to the adoption of sustainable building principles in the construction industry. This prompted the need to establish an effective strategy for construction materials procurement towards the enhancement of sustainable building production in Western Cape, South Africa. The research study adopted a mixed methodological approach, which involved the use of semi-structured qualitative interviews and closed-ended quantitative questionnaires administered to construction stakeholders (contractors and consultants) in the Western Cape Province of South Africa. SPSS version 23 software was used to analyse the quantitative data collected and ‘content analysis’ method was used to analyse the information collected through qualitative interview conducted.