ActionSA president Herman Mashaba yesterday unveiled his party’s manifesto for the forthcoming national and provincial government elections, anchored on five main points, including the controversial clean out of undocumented foreign nationals and the ambitious promise to create 4.8-million jobs within five years in government.
Mashaba was addressing party supporters at the Ellis Park indoor arena in Johannesburg, Gauteng, where the party also paraded its so-called “team Fix SA” members – the potential cabinet should the party win the elections.
Besides the jobs creation plan, Mashaba said ActionSA would also end loadshedding within two years in office, while it would secure borders and deport all illegal foreigners immediately.
The fourth and fifth priorities would be to restore the rule of law, stamp out corruption and bring about inclusive economic justice to end inequality.
On jobs, Mashaba said current laws were anti-potential for investors, and ActionSA would change a lot of them, including curtailing the powers of labour unions. An ActionSA government would ensure an average of 5% economic growth within the first five years of government.
“South Africans are not lazy; they want to work but job-killing economic policies and poor education are holding us back,” said Mashaba to roaring supporters. After ActionSA rings in changes in the economic and labour space, he added, unemployment in the country would be reduced to about 18% in the short term.
Mashaba said the more than a decade-old loadshedding problem would be history in just two years of his being at the helm of Union Buildings. For starters, he would open up the energy space market to private players by breaking the monopoly of Eskom.
Furthermore, he went on to say, “We will end nepotism at Eskom to ensure the entity is staffed with qualified people and people are appointed based on merit and competence, not political affiliation.”
Mashaba would also end BEE and replace it with what ActionSA calls an economic justice policy. This new policy would have an Opportunity Fund as its foundation, and the role of the fund would be to fund all innovative business ideas by the previously disadvantaged and to fund tertiary education.
Companies contributing to the fund will receive tax rebates. As part of combating crime, Mashaba said ActionSA would introduce special courts and amend the Constitution to establish a permanent chapter 9 institution to investigate high-profile corruption.
But at the top of ActionSA’s agenda would be to clean out undocumented foreign nationals so that South Africans can focus on fixing their country.
“ActionSA will act to secure our borders and put an end to illegal immigration.
“We will overhaul home affairs to clamp down on corruption and the issuing of fraudulent documentation,” Mashaba said.
