DA to appeal High Court ruling on BBBEE criteria for Covid-19 relief funding

22 June 2020

Note to Editors: Please find attached English soundbite by Zakhele Mbhele MP, DA Shadow Minister of Small Business Development.

After a review of the High Court judgment in our case against the application of BBBEE criteria for Covid-19 relief funding, the Democratic Alliance (DA) has decided to file an appeal to continue our fight against the wholesale entrenchment of racial criteria in government policy and administration.

While we are pleased that the court upheld our argument that the government had acted unlawfully by failing to provide clarity on how relief criteria would be applied, the larger issue, of racial discrimination in disaster relief, requires urgent reconsideration in a higher court.

It is both morally and legally indefensible that racist criteria are used in the context of distributing disaster relief.

The precedent that would otherwise be created is a huge setback for non-racialism, and intensifies the impulse for the lens of race being applied to everything.

We maintain that in this context, there is a valid argument and strong legal interpretation to require rational exemptions from BBBEE policy.

Issued by Zakhele Mbhele, DA Shadow Minister of Small Business Development, 22 June 2020