Fin24 reports that the Constitutional Court (ConCourt) has declined to hear an application for leave to appeal a lower court's ruling that found the state was wrong to include Broad-based Black Economic Empowerment (B-BBEE) as a criterion to access Covid-19 relief grants in the tourism sector.
In April 2020, as the Covid-19 pandemic caused local and international tourism to grind to a halt, then-tourism minister Mmamoloko Kubayi set up a Tourism Relief Fund. The minister included the B-BBEE status level of applicants as one of the criteria for funding. Trade union Solidarity and lobby group AfriForum then took the Department of Tourism to the North Gauteng High Court, arguing there was no need to use "race as a benchmark" for relief. While they lost their initial case, AfriForum and Solidarity won on appeal in the Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) in September 2021. The minister had argued she was bound to include the B-BBEE level of applicants as one of the criteria for relief under the B-BBEE Tourism Sector Code. But the SCA found that the minister was mistaken, as relief grants administered under the Disaster Management Act could not be viewed as grants "in support of B-BBEE". The department then applied for leave to appeal the SCA ruling before the ConCourt. On Wednesday, the apex court denied leave to the appeal. This means that the SCA's September 2021 ruling stands. In its ruling, the ConCourt noted that the issue was "moot" as SA's state of disaster had long been lifted and the funds already distributed. Solidarity’s Anton van der Bijl commented that the case set an important precedent as it would be harder for the state to include B-BEEE requirements as part of the criteria for relief funds in the future.
- Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Jan Cronje at Fin24
- Read too, ‘No need to entertain appeal’, says ConCourt on Tourism fund’s BEE criteria case, at The Citizen
- En ook, ‘Finale nekslag’ vir toerisme-rasfonds, by Maroela Media
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