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Solidarity and AfriForum announced today that it ready to defend the ruling that the Department of Tourism’s relief fund is illegal in the Constitutional Court. This came after the department announced that they would fight the ruling delivered by the Bloemfontein Court of Appeal in the Constitutional Court.
 
“It is clear that the state is determined to pursue its racial agenda at all costs. It is not interested in reasonableness, and in no way does it take into account the business owners or employees who had to suffer during the pandemic. The only thing the government is interested in, is in implementing its ideology of so-called transformation under the guise of so-called aid,” said Anton van der Bijl, head of Legal Matters at Solidarity.
 
According to Solidarity, the allocation of relief funds on the basis of race is unreasonable, and the Court of Appeal upheld this by declaring this action by the Department of Tourism as illegal. Solidarity is of the opinion that the pandemic has hit all businesses in the tourism sector, regardless of skin colour, and that the government is exploiting the pandemic and the lockdown to promote its own racial agenda.
 
“Our legal team is ready to defend the ruling of Judge Plasket of Supreme Court of Appeal. We will not allow the government to implement its racial discrimination through state channels. The government refuses to fulfil its responsibility to the whole of South Africa, choosing to focus only on its own officials and cadres. We will not tolerate such behaviour and will continue to take a stand against the government and fight it for as long as the government continues with its racial ideology and corruption, harming the people of South Africa,” Van der Bijl concluded.
 
“The fund’s criteria are downright racist. The state may try to disguise it as transformation, but it has shown its true colours long ago. It is extremely callous to now exploit the damage the government has caused the tourism sector through its unreasonable Covid-19 lockdown regulations to discriminate against people. We are ready to carry on fighting against this discrimination,” Jacques Broodryk, AfriForum’s campaign manager, said.
 

Issued by Solidarity