Using empowerment scores as criteria for assistance to distressed tourism enterprises — as tourism minister Mmamoloko Kubayi-Ngubane has confirmed to be government’s intention — sends a disturbing message about what to expect in future.

It is debatable just how significant in practical terms the proposed R200m relief (and any future allocations) will be. Tourism is, after all, especially vulnerable to the Covid-19 crisis and will remain so for a long time to come. But that the assistance will be apportioned in line with race-based policy sends a profoundly important message — that ideological fixations still trump the imperatives of economic reconstruction...

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