Tourism Minister Mamoloko Kubayi-Ngubane has defended her decision to give relief to BEE compliant companies in the tourism sector.
She was challenged by DA MP Hildegard Boshoff during a virtual briefing to the Tourism Portfolio Committee on the effects of the lockdown and COVID-19 on the sector Monday night.
Last week, the High Court in Pretoria ruled that the department’s decision to consider empowerment codes in the allocation of COVID-19 relief is not unlawful after trade union Solidarity and lobby group AfriForum took the minister to court.
Boshoff says race should not matter when the relief fund is granted.
This was Kubayi’s response to the DA.
“Honourable Boshoff, indeed 26 years down the line why do we have people that say we are not transformed, because it’s equally the same. We are using race because we are the most unequal society in terms of distribution. If we are to blindly say the past didn’t happen, we are trying to deal with more that three hundred years of discrimination but that it continues.”
“The inequality in our societies is not something that was done in this 26 years. It is the infrastructure that was laid over years where people stayed in the most remote areas that are not able to access opportunities,” explains Kubayi-Ngubane.
In the video below, minister respond to MPs questions over her BEE decision:
