Of all the industries that have been battered by Covid-19, few can have had it as tough as tourism. An industry that is dependent on people travelling is bound to suffer when there is so little leisure travel. On January 26 the government launched its R1.2bn Tourism Equity Fund , with the specific aim of boosting transformation in an industry that is falling behind in adapting its profile to that of our rainbow nation.
Last month the high court in Pretoria granted an interim injunction to suspend the activities of the fund. The support is now available to no-one. This has a specific target market of 51% black-owned businesses. Hence the name. It makes policy sense to create black-owned manufacturing companies of scale. If many already existed, there would be no need for the incentive. They do not.
Let us instead take a step back. Let us not see this fund as something that is being put in place solely in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic, which of course has no racial preference in the way in which it selects its victims. The government has many existing incentives with rules that result in deserving applicants, many of them black, not being able to qualify. I support the need for rules.
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