DA welcomes High Court interdict of Tourism Equity Fund

28 April 2021

The DA welcomes the decision by the North Gauteng High Court to interdict the disbursement of government’s R1.2 billion Tourism Equity Fund.

We have long advocated for this fund to be more inclusive of all businesses in the tourism sector that have been affected by the economic crisis brought on by the Covid-19 pandemic, and not just those that are 51% black-owned.

The DA extends our congratulations to AfriForum and Solidarity in working to reverse government’s irrational racial barriers to relief funding. These barriers exclude many South Africans from receiving vital funding to save their livelihoods, their businesses and their employees from the growing lines and inconsistent payments of social grants.

Instead of doing everything in its power to offer relief to businesses during an economic implosion of its own making, the ANC government is pushing increasing numbers of South Africans into poverty. Millions of South Africans have already lost their jobs since the start of lockdown, the majority of those due to irrational regulations imposed by a callous government only interested in lining their own pockets and those who are politically connected.

The ANC government has had 27 years to enact economic transformation and has largely failed in doing so, because it lacks the political will to look beyond its own stomach and address the suffering of South Africans. The employment of racial criteria to relief funding is further evidence that the only the ANC elite and their cadres were ever meant to be economically empowered.

Issued by Manny de Freitas, DA Shadow Minister of Tourism, 28 April 2021