ANC evidently divided on race-based Covid-19 funding
19 May 2020
During this morning’s joint meeting of the standing committee and select committees of finance, a heated exchange took place on the matter of race-based criteria on Covid-19 relief funding.
To the surprise of many in last week’s meeting, the Minister of Finance, Tito Mboweni admitted that he could not support a policy position that discriminated against business owners based on their race. When it came to documenting this in the committee’s report, there was heated debate.
In reponse, the Co-Chairperson, Yunus Carrim today said that it annoyed the ANC when Mboweni spoke his mind. This drove further disagreement as the Chairperson of the Select Committee on Appropriations Dikaledi Mahlangu distanced herself from Carrim’s comment in the chat section of the virtual meeting.
While the Democratic Alliance (DA) in the meeting stressed the importance that the committee should clearly state in its report that racial criteria would not be used for relief funding, several of the ANC members doggedly refused to accept the changes that were proposed.