By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
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.
De Lille delivered the party’s election manifesto on Saturday morning at Liliesleaf farm in Rivonia, north of Johannesburg.
She said the party will fight for social justice, spatial justice, economic justice and environmental justice, among other priorities.
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.
The tourism minister said the face of poverty and suffering in South Africa remains that of a woman of colour.
“If she has a job besides raising children, which is not regarded as ‘real work’, she likely earns less than men do.
“If you look closely you may see the scars she bears of the plague of gender-based violence.
“Because of our history, issues of gender and identity are not boxes that simply require ticking in election manifestos… They speak to the heart of a society’s posture about itself, and its level of self-esteem.
“Gender and identity equality cut across all four of GOOD’s pillars of justice,” De Lille said.
De Lille said she’s concerned the extent of poverty threatens to dismantle all the gains South Africa has made since dismantling apartheid.
“The fact that nearly nine million of us are so severely poor as to qualify for the R350 SRD grant, and that we can’t look to the economy to release the pressure by generating jobs, is our number one crisis.
“The fact that the R350 is less than half of what an adult needs just to feed him or herself is a recipe for disaster.
If the economy cannot provide for the people’s basic needs, the Constitution provides, the responsibility falls to the State,”
She believes Basic Income Grant is a viable solution for the current sufferings of the people of South Africa.
“The fact that the economy is not creating enough jobs is not the fault of poor people.
A good government would implement a Basic Income Grant of a minimum of R999 a month to all unemployed people,” she adds.
De Lille urges South Africans to send people with integrity to parliament.
“People who are not in the game to enrich themselves, or play different groups of us off against each other.
“People with a vision of developing the fair, just, inclusive and united country that many of us fought hard to achieve.
“We call on South Africans to invest their votes wisely, in people with values, principles and the genuine desire to build a country in which all its people feel at home,” she added.