IFP manifesto — free primary education and a debate on the death penalty

All about…

Basic income, grants and social policy

• An unemployed graduate grant of R3,000;


• Review grants and increase if necessary – link all grants to opportunities and training;


• One community, one social worker;


• Legalise baby savers (baby boxes at NGOs for abandoned babies).

Crime and corruption

• More powers to traditional courts;


• Open a national debate on reinstating the death penalty;


• Prompt dismissal and prosecution of corrupt officials, irrespective of rank or political affiliation;


• Use the force of the South African National Defence Force in areas where gangsterism is rife;


• Support and implement the principles of restorative justice.

Economy

• Curb data costs by 50% through state intervention;


• Grow the cannabis and hemp sectors;


• Revitalise Ithala Bank (Perennially corrupt – Editor).

Education

• Raise the pass mark to 50%;


• Redirect Seta billions to give internships to unemployed graduates in municipal, provincial and national government departments;


• Free primary education and a focus on fixing NSFAS, the financial aid scheme for disadvantaged students;


• Focus on early childhood education as a priority;


• Teacher accommodation for rural-based teachers.

Food

• A South African Social Security Agency food relief voucher system.

Global policy

• It’s a nationally focused manifesto.

Governance

• Elevate the role of traditional leaders in governance.

Health

• Devolve autonomy from national to provincial and local levels;


• One regional hospital in each of 52 health districts; expand clinic network;


• Reduce the high cost of medicine.

Jobs

• A strict 80:20 South Africans to foreigners rule across all businesses;


• Job reservation for entry-level and low-skill sectors.

Land and housing

• Increase the qualifying income for fully subsidised housing from R3,500 to R5,500 monthly;


• Introduce a housing benefit scheme for those who earn above the subsidy threshold;


• Subsidise first-time homeowners;


• Integrate hostels into communities;


• A full-scale land audit (This has been done many times – Editor);


• State support for new farmers and viable cooperatives;


• Make sure communal land stays in the hands of traditional leaders;


• Provincial governments must support this land to the standard of commercial farms;


• Supports land expropriation with reasonable compensation;


• Reactivate local agricultural support centres – promote public-private partnerships in agricultural development.

Migration

• Deploy the SANDF to ports of entry and borders to fortify them;


• Invest in a National Immigration Inspectorate;


• An all-of-government plan to deport illegal migrants;


• A six-month permit review process for all foreigners;


• Ensure critical skills visas are issued in four weeks;


• Invoice countries whose citizens are in South Africa illegally and who use healthcare services.

National Health Insurance (NHI)

• Supports universal health coverage;


• Redress the funding model of the NHI Bill, while defining the roles of public and private healthcare services more clearly.

Power cuts

• Manage Eskom as a public-private partnership.;


• Cut unnecessary fuel levies;


• Maintain coal as a primary energy source while promoting renewables;


• Support the green hydrogen economy.

Traditional leaders

• Protect and sustain traditional leadership through respect, compensation and capacitation;


• Amend chapters 7 and 12 of the Constitution to improve traditional leaders’ roles, powers and functions;


• Extend the Ingonyama Trust land model to other provinces. Before 1994, the apartheid government transferred traditional leadership land in KwaZulu-Natal to the Ingonyama Trust. (It’s not the most democratic system, is open to abuse and places women landholders at a disadvantage – Editor).

Reality check

• It’s an expensive manifesto that would substantially increase the social wage, with hikes in grants and housing subsidies, yet it doesn’t grapple with the necessary trade-offs;


• The powers it envisages investing in traditional leaders raise questions of how much South Africa can afford to spend here;


• The migration policy is Trumpian;


• In Johannesburg, a portfolio run by the IFP in an administration where it was part of a governing coalition was notoriously corrupt.

What’s good