South African Minister of Tourism, Mmamoloko Kubayi-Ngubane, has dismissed “with contempt” the claims made by non-governmental civil rights organisation Afriforum that she had been served with court papers for the review of the Tourism Relief Fund.
“Since Afriforum made this assertion in a media statement issued on Tuesday, we have been inundated by enquiries from the public on the matter,” said Kubayi-Ngubane.
“We therefore would like to put it categorically to the public that no such court papers were filed with the court by Afriforum to date. Therefore, any statement issued to the contrary is disingenuous.”
The Ministry of Tourism explained that it had received papers from attorneys of Afriforum purporting to be an urgent court interdict to the relief fund and further indicated that the Ministry of Tourism should respond by 09h00 on April 15.
“Our position is that those papers, which were emailed to us, did not have a court case number, meaning there is no court process which was initiated, and we are not able to respond to court.”
Afriforum has been opposing the Tourism Relief Fund – which is meant to provide once-off capped grants to small businesses in the sector that have been negatively impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic – on the basis that its criteria excludes a wide number of small, medium and micro enterprise (SMME) beneficiaries.
The Minister explained that the fund was guided by the Tourism Broad-based Black Economic Empowerment Codes of Good Practice approved by the Minister of Trade and Industries in 2015.
“Our government is aware of the difficulties experienced by businesses during this time and hence the need to support the industry and communities to cope with the negative effects of this pandemic,” said Kubayi-Ngubane.
“Any person or business in the tourism sector can apply for the fund, regardless of the colour of their skin. Applicants are required to be fully compliant as required by law.”
