DA loses its BBBEE fight in court

A full high court bench has dismissed the DA’s bid to have government stop using BBBEE status, race, gender, age or disability in determining who will receive Covid-19 aid.

The court also ruled the criteria used on who gets aid is unlawful and has been set aside because it is too vague. It ruled that Minister of Small Business Development Khumbudzo Ntshavheni must redraft the criteria.

At the same time, the court ruled that the the department’s criteria by which people are chosen to receive aid, under the Debt

Finance Scheme and the Business Growth Resilience Fund, be set aside and declared unlawful because they are too vague.

Led by Judge President Dunstan Mlambo, the court ruled on Friday that Ntshaveheni must redraft the regulations on who will be favoured in receiving financial assistance from the two schemes set up for Covid-19 relief.

The court ruled that the minister must include race in the redrafted regulations, despite the DA’s arguments to the contrary.

“In the reformulation of criteria to be employed in the distribution of funds under either the Debt Finance Scheme or the Business Growth Resilience Fund, the minister must take into account race, gender, youth and disability,” Mlambo said.

The court dismissed the DA’s assertions that the government’s decision to use transformation criteria when determining who gets economic relief was illegal.

“The outbreak of Covid-19 has brought sharply into focus the fissures in our society caused by race, gender and other forms of egregious discrimination,” the judgment read. – News 24 Wire