The highlights of EFF’s election manifesto

EFF leader Julius Malema, addresses EFF follower at Mehlareng Stadium in Tembisa, during the manifesto launch. Picture: Itumeleng English

EFF leader Julius Malema, addresses EFF follower at Mehlareng Stadium in Tembisa, during the manifesto launch. Picture: Itumeleng English

Published Feb 23, 2014

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The EFF’s election manifesto focuses on seven key socio-economic and political issues. These include economic emancipation for rapid economic and industrial development; provision of quality social welfare services; radical transformation of the state into a people’s driven state and governance and ending global imperialist dominance by the West.

 

Economic emancipation for rapid economic and industrial development

n Lead massive labour-absorptive and sustainable industrial development by.

n Protecting sustainable industrial development and diversification to create millions of decent jobs through state-led industrialisation.

n Beneficiating and industrialising a minimum of 50% of all mineral resources locally.

n Producing and processing all food for local consumption in the country by intensifying small scale farming and agriculture and legally compelling food traders to buy local products.

n Building a sustainable food economic chain which will supply food items to other parts of the world to create millions of jobs.

n Helping communities in the coastal areas to start agro-fishing businesses and cooperatives.

n Granting fishing rights to the fishing communities in the coastal areas and provide them with strategic support.

n Ensuring that all products and goods that contribute to State construction projects are locally produced, unless in exceptional cases.

n Ensuring the development, protection and localisation of industries that deal in glass, building materials, furniture and electronics, among others.

n Supporting SMMEs to play an active role in the economy by building and supporting 1 million enterprises between 2014 and 2019.

n Protecting the rights of street hawkers to trade in a safe and clean environment in all cities.

 

Enforcing minimum wages and banning labour brokers by

* Implementing a minimum wage of R4500 across the board for all full-time workers.

* Passing legislation to increase minimum wages in all sectors, which will take the following format:

Mineworkers: R12 500 per month.

Farm workers: R5 000 per month.

Manufacturing workers: R6 500.

Retail workers (Cashiers and retail store assistants): R5 000.

Builders: R7 000.

Petrol attendants: R5 000

Cleaners: R4 500

Domestic workers: R 500

Private security guards: R 500.

Full time waiters and waitresses: R4 500.

* Abolishing all contract work and labour brokers regulating retrenchments by compelling companies to continue paying workers’ salaries for 6 months post retrenchment.

* Ensuring equal pay for equal work, irrespective of gender, race, class and place of origin.

 

Reviewing Black Economic Empowerment and Affirmative Action by:

* By limiting and ultimately curbing the recurrent enrichment of few individuals.

* Ensuring ownership and control of all businesses outside state control reflects the country’s demographics.

* Pursuing and ensuring maximum compliance to affirmative action laws to end the white male domination in the economy.

* Abolish incentives that pay white companies for complying with affirmative action.

 

Education and training.

* Provide free quality education for the poor from early childhood development to tertiary level.

* Impose education tax on all corporations and use the money to fund education and training.

* Introduce a scholarship which will take a minimum of 15 000 students (5000 of which will be medical practitioners) to the best universities across the world.

* Cancel student debts.

* Introduce history as a compulsory subject to instil consciousness.

* Provide compulsory Early Childhood Development (ECD) programmes to all children aged 3 years.

* Reopen teacher colleges to intensify training.

* Improve the remuneration and working conditions of academics to keep them in the profession.

* Transform professional bodies for Chartered Accountants, Engineers, Architects to ensure they accredit more previously disadvantaged individuals.

 

Healthcare

* Priotise the training of Professional and Community Healthcare Practitioners.

* Build a State Pharmaceutical Company to produce and distribute medicines.

* Build a state owned healthcare equipment company to build healthcare equipment.

* Produce essential generic medicines without regard to Intellectual Property Rights regimes.

* Provide healthcare facilities to all communities.

* Send a minimum of 5 000 young South Africans per annum to train as doctors abroad.

* Ensure that practitioners with administrative experience run hospitals.

* Expedite the implementation of National Health Insurance.

* Ensure hospital care is not determined by provincial boundaries.

* Incorporate traditional healers into the healthcare system.

* Work towards realising a 0% HIV infection rate.

* Reopen nursing colleges.

 

Housing and sanitation

* Provide quality houses with water and electricity.

* Subsidise housing finance for middle income earners and reduce housing loans from 20 to a maximum of 10 years.

* Ban the repossession by banks of houses from people who have paid 50% of the bonds, and are unable to continue paying the bond due to socio-economic circumstances.

* Abolish the bucket system within five years.

 

Safety and security

* Increase police visibility and making the criminal justice system more efficient.

* Hire police reservists permanently to increase police visibility.

* Guarantee the right of communities to assemble and protest, with no intimidation from the police.

* Ban usage of live ammunition during protests.

* Ensure all security workers protecting state institutions are employed by government.

 

TRANSFORMATION OF THE CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM:

* Ensure that the criminal justice system is efficient, and all South African citizens have access to justice.

* Ensure no one is denied justice irrespective of their race, gender and economic status.

* Establish specialised courts to deal with public service corruption and maladministration.

 

GENDER EQUALITY AND WOMEN EMANCIPATION:

* Ensure a minimum of 50% women representation in all economic benefit and political participation and managerial and leadership responsibility.

 

QUALITY ROADS, TRANSPORT AND INFRASTRUCTURE:

* Employ communities to build roads.

* Abolish e-tolls and will physically remove them.

* Subsidize the taxi industry with the intention of reducing taxi fares and improving salaries and working conditions of drivers.

* Expand the railways and buy new trains.

* Ensure affordable and accessible public transport system.

 

SOCIAL GRANTS:

* Increase social grants to take the following shape:

Grant for older persons: Increase from R1 300 to R2 600 per month.

Disability grant: Increase from R1 200 to R2 400 per month.

War veterans grant: Increase from R1 220 to R2 440 per month.

Care dependency grant: Increase from to R1 200 to R2 400 per month.

Foster child grant: Increase from R800 to R1 600 per month.

Child support grant: Increase from R300 to R600 per month.

* Use social grants as an instrument to boost local economies and address crisis levels of poverty.

* Create millions of jobs to decrease dependency on social grants.

* Pay all grants through the post office and post bank.

* Introduce a social grant of R2 500 per month for all terminally ill South Africans.

* Explore and investigate the possibility of paying Basic Income Grants.

 

RURAL DEVELOPMENT, LAND AND AGRARIAN REFORM:

* Bring economic activity to rural areas.

* Redistribute land equally amongst all people.

* Help small scale agriculture with agricultural implements.

* Revive abandoned factories in the townships and rural areas.

* Help chicken farmers with state owned hatcheries.

* Assist small agriculture by compelling food retailers to buy local agricultural products.

* Ban the production of Genetically Modified Organism (GMOs).

 

FIGHTING CORRUPTION:

* Enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of governance institutions to avoid corruption.

* Abolish the usage of private companies to fulfil government functions.

* Ban government usage of consultants and project management units.

* Establish State Administration Courts to promptly respond to incidents of corruption with the aim of firing and blacklisting corruption state employees and private companies, and recover money.

* Introduce a minimum of 20 years sentence for those convicted of corruption.

* Protect the independence of the Public Protector, the Auditor General and other anti- corruption institutions.

* Ban public representatives and public servants from doing business with the State.

 

PUBLIC REPRESENTATIVES USING PUBLIC SERVICES:

* Limit the perks of public representatives by banning the purchase of cars and houses for ministers and MECs.

* Compel all public office bearers, including the president and his/her family, to use state schools and healthcare facilities.

 

ADEQUATE SALARIES AND WORKING CONDITIONS OF ALL PUBLIC SERVANTS:

* Increase the salaries of all public servants such as teachers, nurses and police by a minimum of 50%.

* Reduce the wage gap in the public sector.

* Abolition of five years working experience requirements to enable new entrants into the public service.

 

LAND EXPROPRIATION WITHOUT COMPENSATION:

* Allow State to take over all land and force current occupants to apply for the re-issue of licences for agricultural purposes.

* Ensure equitable land ownership.

* Ban all forms of foreign land ownership and introduce a land lease system.

* Adopt a principle of “use it or lose it” on land use.

 

NATIONALISATION OF MINES:

* Amend current laws to ensure that a minimum of 60% of existing mines are owned by the State, workers, and mining communities.

* Use benefits from the mines to create jobs, reduce poverty and fund social economic programmes.

 

NATIONALISATION OF PRIVATE BANKS AND OTHER STRATEGIC SECTORS OF THE ECONOMY:

* Expropriate a minimum of 60% of designated categories of existing companies.

* Stop private ownership of companies such as Sasol and Arcelor-Mittal Steel.

* Take over a minimum of 60% ownership of private banks.

* Give such banks developmental and job creation mandates.

 

NATIONALISATION OF THE RESERVE BANK AND CREATION OF A STATE OWNED BANK:

* Ensure that the Reserve Bank is owned and controlled by the state and its policies are linked to industrial development.

* Ensure Reserve Bank policies are aimed at job creation rather than just inflation targeting.

* Use state-owned bank to provide housing and vehicle finance to the poor.

 

STATE OWNED ENTERPRISES:

* Replace current management of State Owned Enterprises by the boards with worker control.

* Retain total control of Eskom, Telkom, Sasol, PetroSA, Denel, SABC, SA Post Office and SAA.

Sundyay Independent

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