Garden Route firms protest

BEACH CLOSURES: FORUM HEADS TO HIGH COURT

Many businesses in area make up to 25% of their income during this time.

Businesses on the Garden Route say the newly announced festive season beach closures puts livelihoods across the region hanging in the balance. In papers fi led in the High Court in Pretoria this week, Wilhelm de Wet, who chairs the Great Brak River Business Forum, said widescale job losses were inevitable unless a judge stepped in.

“The stark financial reality is that the closure of beaches, particularly in the Garden Route district, will undoubtedly result in an irremediable financial decline, a concomitant surge in unemployment and disastrous socioeconomic consequences,” he said.

On Monday night, President Cyril Ramaphosa announced all beaches in the Eastern Cape and on the Garden Route – both now hotspots – would be closed for the festive season. He also said beaches in KwaZulu-Natal would be closed on what were traditionally the busiest days. Regulations to this effect were gazetted on Tuesday.

But the Great Brak River Forum and Afrikaans lobby group AfriForum are hauling Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs Minister Dr Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma to court in a desperate bid to have the regulations thrown out. The case is expected to be argued next week.

In the papers, De Wet said the industry depended on the festive season to sustain itself for the rest of the year and that some businesses made up to 25% of their annual income during this period.

He pointed to the “numerous cancellations” one guesthouse was already facing on the back of Monday’s announcement, saying it anticipated a 40% drop in occupancy rates this month.

De Wet described the decision-making process that resulted in the announcement as “draconian and inconsiderate” and argued it had seen less restrictive means “overlooked and ignored” and was, as a result, irrational.

The minister had, as of yesterday, not yet fi led any answering papers and her spokesperson had, at the time of publishing, not responded to a request for comment.

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