No BEE ‘bias’ in Tourism Relief Fund allocations, court rules

Government’s Tourism Relief Fund, which was put on ice pending the finalisation of a high court challenge by AfriForum and Solidarity over “the use of race as a benchmark for the awarding of Covid-19 relief”, will now be able to go ahead.

Judge Jody Kollapen on Thursday dismissed the organisations’ urgent application and ruled they did not succeed in advancing any grounds for review. He made no order on costs.

The fund was established to mitigate the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the tourism industry and to provide emergency funding of up to R50,000 for small, micro and medium-sized tourism businesses.

AfriForum two weeks ago approached the High Court in Pretoria with an urgent application for an order reviewing and setting aside Tourism Minister Mmamoloko Kubayi-Ngubane’s decision “to apply race-based criteria in the allocation of funds to assist ailing tourism businesses” as well as interdicting Kubayi-Ngubane and her department from “allocating and disbursing funds on the basis of any criteria unrelated to the needs of the particular business”, The Citizen reported earlier.

The department maintained that the fund would be guided by the Tourism Broad Based Black Economic Empowerment (B-BBEE) Codes of Good Practice and administered in line with the objectives of economic transformation. The minister also said that the application of B-BBEE codes of good practice was mandatory, The Citizen reported.

In his ruling on Thursday, Judge Kollapen said the uneven playing field in the industry had to be taken into account by the Tourism Department in its response to helping businesses during the virus epidemic.

A race-neutral response could have the effect of deepening fault lines in society, he said, as reported by EWN.

Also, the criteria applied when awarding this relief were flexible and do not perpetuate an unfair advantage for some candidates – at least based on race.

(Compiled by Carina Koen.)

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