Good Party leader Patricia de Lille has called for government to implement its policies to allow for the rebuilding of the economy, create jobs and deliver basic services.
This was after Good party Secretary-General Brett Herron announced a 10-point plan for the party to improve service delivery and take the country out of economic stagnation.
The party said part of its plans include creating jobs by investing in small businesses, end load shedding, fight crime and corruption, introduce the Basic Income Grant and the provide basic services.
Herron said they want a Basic Income Grant of almost R1,000. Minister of Finance Enoch Godongwana announced on Thursday that the R350 Social Relief of Distress Grant will increase to R370 by the beginning of April.
But De Lille said they want a basic income grant of almost R1,000 to cushion many people.
De Lille was on Saturday launching her party’s manifesto in Johannesburg.
She said their manifesto was to rebalance society. She said promises made by political parties won’t materialise after the May elections because the structure of government was the same.
She said they need to change it and make it easy to deliver services.
The structure was too bureaucratic, said the Good Party leader.
“The Good manifesto is our recipe to rebalance society. The promises the parties are making won’t materialise on June 1, 2024 because the structure of government will be the same, the same structure that struggled to deliver to the nation’s satisfaction. If we don’t change the structure we will achieve no more than changing the positions of the deck chairs on the Titanic.
“We have created a bureaucracy of note, largely modelled on controlled systems borrowed from our Northern nations. There is much we can learn from them, but to simply take their template and apply it to our civil service is not necessarily the most comfortable fit. Our structure must be professionalised to improve efficiencies
“We don’t need new plans every five years. The best plans in the world aren’t worth the paper that they are written on if they are not implemented. Government has put some good plans on the table over the years. The question it needs to answer is why – with budgets approved by parliament – it hasn’t done what its own policies say it should have done?,” asked De Lille.
She also hit out against failure to implement the recommendations of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) for the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) to charge those implicated in apartheid-era crimes.
Recently, former president Thabo Mbeki denied he had prevented or stopped the NPA from prosecuting these cases when he was head of state.
Mbeki said the NPA has failed in its work to prosecute these cases.
Minister of Justice and Correctional Services Ronald Lamola said they have taken some of the cases to court.
De Lille said there needs to be action regarding the implementation of the recommendations of the TRC.
The TRC Act was clear about who needed to be prosecuted after it submitted its report to the president at the time.
siyabonga.mkhwanazi@inl.co.za
IOL Politics