By: Amy Musgrave
The transfer of economic wealth to all South Africans can only happen through far-reaching policy interventions, including increased support to small-scale and emerging enterprises, according to the Economic Freedom Fighters, the country’s third largest political party. The emphasis of the radical left party’s manifesto for this year’s general elections is on land redistribution, job creation and ending the energy crisis.
Similar to other opposition parties, the EFF believes that some of the state’s procurement policies must change. If elected, the party says it will achieve this by amending state procurement laws, such as the Public Finance Management Act and the Municipal Finance Management Act. “The EFF government will use state procurement as an instrument for driving job creation, meaning that a minimum of 80% of all goods and services procured by the state must be locally produced, and majority-owned and controlled by the people of South Africa. “The localisation drive will include all procurement, inclusive of automobiles, electronics, textiles, food and professional services,” the manifesto reads.
It will also amend pension fund laws to increase investment in private equity for infrastructure development, SME development, and land transformation. On land and food security, the EFF has reiterated that it will reintroduce the motion to amend the Constitution to permit the expropriation of land without compensation, and transfer 50% of land to black people within its the first five years in government.
It wants 100% of the food procured by the state for school feeding schemes, hospitals, prisons, etc. to be locally produced by emerging historically excluded farmers, with a minimum of 50% procured from women and the youth. “The EFF government will ensure that all food for local consumption is produced and processed on a massive scale in South Africa. This will happen through the intensification of small-scale farming and agriculture and by giving strategic support to all small-scale agricultural operations, including providing trade routes,” the manifesto reads.
The party plans on building internal support capacity within the Land Bank to ensure it beefs up non-financial and financial support to emerging farmers “through other forms of funding and blended finance on the scale of 20/80 loan and grant component respectively”. On jobs, to ensure that smaller enterprises are given strategic support through state intervention, key industrial inputs and services to big corporations and companies must be provided by SMMEs.
Also, multiple regions across the country will be declared special economic zones to promote inward industrialisation and manufacturing investments with export capacity so that the ownership and control of the economy are demographically representative. On mining, the EFF aims to actively promote the development of black industrialists, cooperatives and SMEs.
“Any mineral reclamation projects will only be approved subject to a stringent licensing regime, which will take into consideration the economic viability of the project, its capacity to create jobs, and its environmental impact, among others, and whose chief aim will be to integrate the artisanal and small-scale mining sector into the formal and mainstream economy.” As part of improving the country’s national infrastructure, three new harbours will be built along the West Coast and six along the East Coast that are specifically designed for the use of small-scale fishing vessels.
At the same time, it will ensure widespread transformation of the fishing industry by allocating fishing rights, subsidies and market-related support to small-scale and emerging black fishing companies to guarantee their transition from subsistence to commercial fishing. The party believes little has been done to protect the rights of street hawkers and informal traders to trade in a safe and clean environment, and not live in fear of police harassment.
“The EFF government will prohibit the confiscation of street traders’ goods as a means of enforcing municipal by-laws. The EFF government will build markets and storage facilities for street hawkers and small vendors in trading areas.”
