Court the next step against ‘discriminatory’ relief measures?

The Institute of Race Relations (IRR) is set to pursue “appropriate legal avenues” to overthrow what it terms race-based policies contained in the government’s criteria for the various relief funds it announced to help small, medium and micro enterprises (SMMEs).

“We want to ensure this injustice is righted. In this regard, the IRR will work with any South African concerned by the national government’s flagrant and destructive racism that will put #LivesAndLivelihoods at risk,” the IRR said in a petition document on its website.

Tourism is one of the sectors hardest hit by the impact of the global COVID-19 pandemic, with the Minister of Tourism, Mmamoloko Kubayi-Ngubane, launching a R200 million (€9.67m) Tourism Relief Fund to provide assistance to SMMEs by way of a once-off capped grant of R50 000 (€2 418) per qualifying entity.

The fund is for tourism establishments such as resort properties, B&Bs, guest houses, lodges and backpackers, restaurants (not attached to hotels), conference venues (not attached to hotels), car-rental companies, tour operators and travel agents.

But the relief fund has come under fire from local industry and a number of business associations, political parties and civil society organisations – including AriForum, trade union Solidarity, the Democratic Alliance (DA) and the Institute for Anti-Racism and Social Cohesion – for discrimination based on the fact that the National Department of Tourism would be guided by the BEE codes in administering the Tourism Relief Fund.

Leader of the DA, John Steenhuisen, has subsequently called on President Cyril Ramaphosa to immediately instruct ministers in his Cabinet to comply with his government’s own assurances that assistance to COVID-19-impacted businesses would be available to all South Africans.

IRR Deputy Head of Policy Research, Hermann Pretorius, said it was unacceptable that Ramaphosa could, on March 15, call for national unity, only for Kubayi-Ngubane to insist on April 7 that race would be used as a basis to determine which South Africans received government support.

“Only a skewed consideration of the economic realities can lead to the conclusion that race-based policies have seen a vital and sustainable improvement in the lives of South Africans,” he said, adding that the IRR continued to vehemently oppose the notion of race-based policies.

“We couldn’t afford the impotent ideological virtue signalling of race-based policies before this current crisis, and we most certainly cannot afford it now.”

CEO of the Institute for Anti-Racism and Social Cohesion, Sean Moodley, was quoted by the online daily news site, IOL, as saying that, while he understood the need for some form of criteria to assist, he was opposed to race being included.

“COVID-19 is a virus that has taken us all by surprise. It is something we have never experienced before and we cannot have an existing blueprint to guide us. We don’t know what the future holds and new policies should be developed that are fitting for the cause.”

A spokesperson for the South African Human Rights Commission told Tourism Update that it was not something the commission would get involved in at this point, but noted that any SMME or individual who felt they had unreasonably been excluded could take their case to the Equality courts.

“It is relatively inexpensive and therefore affordable for a small business,” he said.

Source: tourismupdate.co.za

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