The Department of Tourism is working to have the legal matters delaying the implementation of the Tourism Equity Fund (TEF) – intended to fast-track transformation within the tourism sector – resolved.

This is according to the Minister of Tourism, Lindiwe Sisulu, who said during the Budget Vote debate in parliament last week that an amount of R360 million (€19.3m) over the medium term is allocated to the fund to support an estimated 31 tourism enterprises. Twenty of these, or 65%, will be female enterprises. 

Court case

The R1.2 billion (€70.8m) Tourism Equity Fund (TEF) – allocated in the 2020/2021 budget – was put on hold following the granting of an urgent interdict by the Gauteng High Court in April last year.

Lobby group, AfriForum and trade union, Solidarity, brought the case before the High Court as they believe the TEF “does not have the interests of all tourism players at heart”

“We will continue to work with interested parties to resolve this matter.  We have no doubt that the sector shares our eagerness to see this matter resolved considering the number of applications received after the fund was launched. A clear indicator that the facility has very high demand,” said Sisulu.

‘Fundamentally feminist’

The TEF was launched in January 2021 by the Department of Tourism to provide a new financial support mechanism to stimulate investment and transformation in the tourism sector, providing a combination of debt finance and grant funding to facilitate equity acquisition as well as new project development, to broaden participation by all South Africans and not just a few dominant players.

Sisulu said that beneficiaries of the fund must have a strong and demonstrable focus on women and women owned and operated enterprises. 

“To support women owned enterprises, the Tourism Equity Fund will be fundamentally feminist. This is to say, work will be done to radically push the role and ownership of women enterprises in the sector,” she said.