ActionSA president Herman Mashaba engage supporters ahead of his party's manifesto launch on Saturday, 23 March 2024. Photo: ActionSA
If ActionSA wins the elections and takes over government, the country’s 500 000 prisoners housed at 245 prisons will be forced to work while serving their sentences in order to repay their debt to society.
The plan was tabled by ActionSA member Advocate Julie Seton while speaking at the political party’s election manifesto launch held at Ellis Park Arena, in Johannesburg, on Saturday, 23 March.
This comes as political parties are embarking on a final push to woo supporters ahead of the 29 May 2024 general elections.
Seton didn’t expand on the idea and it’s not clear how the country’s criminals will be integrated into the labour market or whether they will pay tax.
The party further promised to:
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“We will limit the rights of criminals, making them repay their debt to society by working while serving their sentences. But we cannot do this alone. Help us fix South Africa on 29 May. Help us restore hope for the millions in despair, desperate to believe again. Vote ActionSA,” said Seton.
ActionSA was formed during the Covid-19 lockdown and emerged in the 2021 local government elections as the sixth largest party in South Africa after contesting six municipalities out of 278 in the country.
“They underestimated us then and they underestimate us now. We shocked them then, we’re going to shock them now,” said party national chairperson Michael Beaumont.
He added that ActionSA has presented an alternative to the 64-person “bloated and sleepy cabinet of retirees”.
READ: ActionSA to consider legal action against Ramaphosa’s ‘draconian state’
The party’s president Herman Mashaba was the last to take to the podium, vowing to create 4.8 million new jobs by 2029.
South Africans are not lazy, they want to work but job-killing economic policies and poor quality of education are holding us back from unlocking economic opportunities.
Mashaba slammed the current government for allowing factories to shut down and promised to reinvigorate industrial areas, such as Garankuwa Industrial Park where he established the highly successful Black Like Me hair product factory in 1985.
More than 300 political parties and independent candidates will contest in this year’s elections compared to 1994 when the African National Congress (ANC) won the first democratic elections by a landslide.
Back then, only 19 parties were on the ballot.
Political party presidents are criss-crossing the country embarking on charm offensives to woo voters.
READ: When ActionSA takes office, here’s how it plans to run government
Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) and ANC presidents Julius Malema and Cyril Ramaphosa took their campaigns to East London and Gqeberha in the Eastern Cape on Friday and Saturday respectively.
The EFF filled Buffalo City Metro stadium where Malema addressed more than 30 000 people in its final push ahead of the elections which are two months away.
ANC secretary general Fikile Mbalula also took his campaign where Malema was in the Buffalo City region where he visited areas, such as East London and Zwelitsha in Qonce, on Friday and Saturday.
This year’s elections will mark 30 years since the first democratic elections and is considered to be the most important elections since 1994.
All parties have also been pulling out all the stops to impress voters with line-up of A-list musicians and performers.
NOW READ: ActionSA hosting policy conference to provide alternative in next year’s elections
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