ANC promises jobs and improved service delivery

During the Gauteng Manifesto endorsement at Sandton Convention Centre, the ruling party said its fifth administration would bolster its efforts to address unemployment, poverty, housing and basic amenities.

The event was organised by the Forum of Professionals, Academics and Business, and served, according to the preamble, “as a culmination of the work we’ve been doing in Gauteng”.

The party said it had brought South Africa a long way since 1994, but conceded that it had a long way to go.

According to ANC Deputy President, Cyril Ramaphosa the ANC manifesto is based on experience of all that had been done in the past 20 years.

“We know what to do going into the next five years,” he said.

In the past 20 years, the ANC had built 3.3 million houses. “When people live in houses and move out of informal settlements and shacks that is when we can say we are touching the nerve centre of delivery to people,” he said.

The ANC would ensure that all citizens had proper sanitation and had also begun the process of eradicating the bucket system.

Ramaphosa added water challenges would also be addressed, ensuring that water was available to those who were currently without a sustainable water supply by building additional dams.

The party further planned to improve access to electricity.

Electricity has been made available to more people, even those in deep rural areas, through the Electrification Programme, Ramaphosa said.

“In the coming five years we are going to do even more, reaching almost 100 percent of full electrification for all our people.”

Ramaphosa noted that 17 million people were currently receiving government grants, adding that this was one of the ANC government’s efforts to address poverty.

Paul Mashatile, in his capacity as ANC’s Gauteng Provincial Chairperson, said resources and a budget of R1 trillion was available to implement the party’s plans and programmes to improve service delivery and infrastructure.

However, the party’s main focus was employment.

“Employment has been one of the key focus areas of our manifesto… The government is going to make sure it plays a critical role supporting the private sector… The private sector accounts for 70 percent of employment in or country,” Ramaphosa said.

“We want to support the private sector to employ more and more people, and to this end the government is going to invest more and more in its own economy.”

The ANC has faced a furious backlash from opposition parties, which claimed that the ANC government had failed to deliver on its employment promises.

However, at the event the party affirmed its investment in business and job creation through the endorsements of local business people.

Chris van Biljon, CEO of the Ekurhuleni Business Initiative and one of the speakers, said the ANC had transformed business in South Africa.

Despite the criticism that the ANC’s current administration has faced, especially regarding unemployment and service delivery, the party was confident that it would win the upcoming elections.

The event was attended by several members of the ANC leadership and hundreds of ANC supporters, but the party’s president Jacob Zuma, who was expected to attend, did not make an appearance.