BusinessLive reports that Solidarity is approaching the Constitutional Court (ConCourt) to appeal a lower court’s ruling allowing the Department of Tourism (DOT) to use empowerment as a consideration when distributing R300m in state relief funding to cushion that sector from the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic.
The trade union has also laid a charge of perjury against small business development minister Khumbudzo Ntshavheni for allegedly contradicting herself over her department’s decision to use race as a criterion to help distressed companies affected by the coronavirus. Solidarity CEO Dirk Hermann said on Monday the union would also file a complaint with the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination regarding the matter. This comes after the joint application by Solidarity and rights group AfriForum to review and set aside tourism minister Mmamoloko Kubayi-Ngubane’s decision to provide support to distressed firms and establishments in the sector based on broad-based BEE codes was dismissed by the High Court in Pretoria on Saturday. The court ruled that the DOT’s decision to consider empowerment codes as grounds for assisting companies was not unlawful. It ruled that that did not give some candidates an unfair advantage over others based on race but rather gave those candidates a head start.
- Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Luyolo Mkentane at BusinessLive
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