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