Tourism minister instructs lawyers to oppose AfriForum’s application over relief fund

In a spat over the new Tourism Relief Fund, Tourism Minister Mmamoloko Kubayi-Ngubane has now confirmed she has received court papers filed by AfriForum on Tuesday questioning the criteria for accessing the fund.

AfriForum announced it had served the minister with an urgent application to have a judge order that race “plays no part” in determining who has access to the new fund.

The new fund provides for emergency funding of up to R50,000 for small, micro and medium-sized businesses in the tourism industry in a bid to mitigate against the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic.

While the minister earlier said she had not received court papers, she clarified that confirmation of the application was received on Wednesday 15 April at 3.45pm.

“We received through email the court case number together with their motion. We have given permission to state lawyers to oppose as we do believe there is merit in what we are doing.

“The laws of the country have not been suspended.”

Kubayi-Ngubane maintains the fund was guided by tourism’s broad-based black economic empowerment codes of good practice with objectives of economic transformation.

In the application, AfriForum’s chief executive Kallie Kriel said: “The minister’s stated intention to help only some people and not others, because of the colour of their skin, their age and/or their gender, makes a mockery of South Africa’s constitutional democracy.

“Discrimination on the basis of race and other unalterable characteristics is immoral and inexcusable.”

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