Judgment has been reserved in a trade union Solidarity and AfriForum’s legal challenge against Tourism Minister Mmamoloko Kubayi-Ngubane‘s decision to provide support to distressed firms and establishments in the tourism sector based on broad-based BEE codes.
The applicants are asking the court to review and set aside the department’s decision to use race as a determining factor on who will receive help from the Tourism Relief Fund.
The court case went ahead, on Monday after there was no political intervention by President Cyril Ramaphosa as requested by Solidarity over the weekend.
Solidarity Spokesperson, Anton van Bijl says all people should benefit from the relief fund regardless of race.
‘Today, it’s a review application by Solidarity and AfriForum. It’s quite unfortunate that the minister decided to base the emergency funding based on the race criteria. We say the consequence of COVID-virus doesn’t discriminate and there is no reason for the Tourism Minister to discriminate. Everyone is entitled to the fund,” he said.
AfriForum’s Chief Executive Officer Kallie Kriel says they believe that they have a strong case.
“We feel strongly that we have a common enemy and the common enemy is COVID-19. We should fight that enemy and this is not the time for government to promote a racial agenda and that is why we are in court today. We are willing to fight this to the highest court in the country. The fact is, you cannot have a situation where you have a situation where race is being used to exclude certain people.”
#AfriForum is currently in the High Court in Pretoria. Watch @afriforum & @solidariteit‘s urgent review application against @Tourism_gov_za’s use of race as a benchmark for the awarding of relief to tourism enterprises live: https://t.co/UzeDCkXkYw#day32oflockdown #coronavirus
— Monique Taute (@monique_taute) April 28, 2020
Meanwhile, Kubayi-Ngubane says her discretion is a matter worth defending in court.
Kubayi-Ngubane says the delay in concluding the first phase of issuing relief funds to beneficiaries is like a nightmare to her.
She says the lack of diversity in the tourism sector is a thorn.
We are in Court today defending our case against Afriforum and Solidarity. We hope that the matter is laid to rest as soon as possible so that we can disperse the funds that are so desperately needed by SMMEs in our Sector #TourismReliefFund #TourismStrong
— Mmamoloko Kubayi-Ngubane (@mmKubayiNgubane) April 28, 2020
The judgment will be handed out before the end of the week and sent through an e-mail to the parties.
