The Department of Tourism is working hand in hand with stakeholders to ensure the safety of tourists when they visit South Africa. Image: SA Tourism.
Calls for ‘controversial’ BBBEE policy to be scrapped
The BBBEE policy has been widely criticised by business owners and politicians for not benefitting everyone.
The Department of Tourism is working hand in hand with stakeholders to ensure the safety of tourists when they visit South Africa. Image: SA Tourism.
The Democratic Alliance (DA) says news that the government has dropped the requirements for its Covid-19 Tourism Equity Fund from 51% to 30% Black ownership is nothing more than a veiled admission that the Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment (BBBEE) policy simply is not working.
This comes as Minister in the Presidency Khumbudzo Ntshavheni announced on Thursday, 14 September, that government has lowered the criteria to access the Tourism Equity Fund.
DA CALLS FOR BBBEE TO BE SCRAPPED
Earlier this year, the Constitutional Court declared the Department of Tourism’s “discriminatory” Tourism Equity Fund for granting relief only to businesses that were 51% black-owned unlawful.
The decision came after this department appealed against the 2021 Supreme Court of Appeal’s 2021 ruling in favour of AfriForum and Solidarity in terms of the use of black economic empowerment (BEE) as criteria for granting relief from the Tourism Equity Fund was unlawful.
Mmamoloko Kubayi, the then Minister of Tourism, introduced the Equity Fund in 2020 as an institution that would only allocate loans and grants to businesses with at least 51% black ownership.
Reacting to the news, the DA said government reduced the criteria to “save face” ; they could not wholly scrap the BBBEE requirement.
The party said although there is no doubt that this change will assist the tourism sector, more than lowering the requirement is needed.
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DA Shadow Minister of Tourism Manny de Freitas said if government is serious about ensuring that the country’s travel and tourism sectors flourish, these requirements must be scrapped entirely.
“During the draconian lockdown in 2020, the Department of Tourism introduced the Tourism Equity Fund, which provided grants to businesses in the tourism and travel sector, which were negatively impacted by the pandemic. The condition for issuing such grants was that these businesses had at least 51% Black ownership.
“This discriminatory condition caused hundreds of thousands of businesses in the sector to close, leaving the owners unemployed and millions of employees standing in the unemployment line. This condition alone caused untold hardships to millions of people, many of whom still suffer today while others have left the sector completely,” de Freitas said.
Meanwhile ActionSA has proposed that the BBBEE policy should be scrapped altogether as it held a two-day policy conference this week.
