Small business development minister Khumbudzo Ntshavheni established two funds to provide financial relief to small, medium and micro enterprises amid the Covid-19 pandemic - the Debt Finance Scheme and the Business Growth Resilience Fund.
“By contrast, there is a substantive requirement, namely that the employees must be 70% South Africans and then there appears the statement ‘priority will be given to business owned by women, youth and people with disabilities'.” In its order, the court ruled that the criteria employed by the minister for determining which people or entities are entitled to receive funds under the scheme and the fund are reviewed and set aside and declared unlawful.