Should ActionSA win the 2024 national and provincial elections, there would be sweeping changes in the policy direction of the country.
This is if the proposals to be ventilated at ActionSA’s maiden national policy conference next week are anything to go by.
This was revealed by ActionSA chairperson Michael Beaumont at the party’s state of readiness media briefing. The briefing on Thursday was also attended by policy gurus.
For starters, an ActionSA national government would do away with the broad-based black economic empowerment (BBBEE) policy in its current form and replace it with economic justice policy.
Furthermore, criminals who commit murder and are sentenced to life in jail will die in prison, literally, and be subjected to hard labour projects as part of their punishment.
This while all undecided and idle matriculants would be afforded an opportunity for a voluntary year of service in the public sector, be it in the army, police, or firefighting services, among other options.
On social welfare, an ActionSA government would introduce a basic income stimulus to give a head-start for economic activity to all unemployed people.
If ActionSA leader Herman Mashaba becomes president, the country would deport en masse all immigrants who are in the country without legal documentation in a zero-tolerance policy on illegal immigration.
The above are among key policy proposals that more than 600 delegates to the party’s policy conference will fine-tune over three days next week.
On BBBEE, ActionSA believes that the policy as it stands has completely failed to deliver economic redress for black people.
Instead, said ActionSA director of governance Nasiphi Moya, BBBEE has benefitted a few with close ties to ANC political elites.
“On the repelling of the BBBEE, the first recognition was on the faults of the outcome of that act – it has produced very few billionaires while the levels of poverty, unemployment and inequality have gone up, which means the policy is failing to achieve its desired outcomes,” said Moya.
“The BBBEE has compounded the problem, which is the legacy of apartheid in this country.
“Our economic justice policy is not only talking about people who suffered under apartheid, but also the generation that comes afterwards.”
ActionSA chief strategist André Coetzee said the national year of service for idle matriculants would be purely voluntary.
Unlike the conscription policy of the apartheid regime when all white matriculants were duty-bound for a year of service in the military, ActionSA proposes something different.
“The objective we want to achieve with our voluntary national year of service is to provide an opportunity to young South Africans who have gone out of the education system to be participants in the economy given the low pass rate,” said Coetzee.
Beaumont said the open season in South Africa’s borders, where undocumented foreigners are entering the country and exiting as they please, would effectively be put to a stop should ActionSA be in power.
“Nothing that we propose in terms of reforming illegal immigration is in contrast with the constitution,” he said.
“The very principle of a nation state starts at the border and a country does not have only the right but the obligation to determine the flow of people that go through the border and under what conditions.
“Our borders need to be guarded and protected far more closely, so that it is not a free for all that is going on right now.”
The ActionSA policy conference, where 13 policy topics will be discussed, starts on Sunday and concludes on Tuesday.
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