The Pretoria High Court has ruled that consideration of race when awarding the Tourism Relief Fund will not create an insurmountable advantage for black-owned businesses over those that are white-owned.
The court has ruled in favour of the Tourism Department in the case against lobby group AfriForum and trade union Solidarity.
The groups argued that the BBBEE requirement when awarding the Tourism Relief Fund was discriminatory, saying this was not the time for empowerment.
The Tourism Department said that BBBEE accounted for 20% of the requirements to be awarded aid.
For the remaining 80%, other factors would be considered, like proving how the business has been affected by COVID-19.
Judge Jody Kollapen said that with the way this scoring system was set, some white-owned companies may still qualify over those that were black-owned.
The department said that they had received over 10,000 applications but with only R200 million available and businesses being entitled to R50,000 each, only 4,000 businesses may benefit in this first round.