United Democratic Movement (UDM) leader Bantu Holomisa released his party's manifesto on Saturday, proposing the partial privatization of Eskom to resolve South Africa's energy crisis.
The UDM is one of the smaller parties to have released a manifesto ahead of May's general elections, and one of several seeking to remain relevant.
Since the party entered politics in 1999, its electoral support has declined in every general election. When the party first entered the election, it won 14 seats in parliament, but this dropped dramatically to just two in the last election.
Mr Holomisa joined the DA-led coalition in the 2016 election, which won him the deputy mayor's post in the Nelson Mandela metro, but the relationship soured soon after.
Holomisa, who has served as party leader since its inception, has also been criticized for his control over the party.
Launching the manifesto, Mr Holomisa said there was a need to consider a public-private partnership model for the privatization of Eskom, in which the government holds a 51% stake.
He said the government would seek help from other countries with strong capabilities to come up with its own diagnosis of South Africa's power outages.
“The ANC was lying to South Africans about the cause of the load shedding,” he said.
Holomisa, a former ANC leader who left the party in the early days of democracy, said the UDM would also seek support from the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, which calls for an extension of deadlines for transitioning from fossil fuels to renewable energy. .
The party also said it sought the opportunity to base its energy policy on South Africa's socio-economic development goals, which had been delayed by past governments' individual development policies.
In 2023, the South African Reserve Bank estimated that load shedding was costing the economy R899 million per day.
In March last year, Power Minister Kgosienzo Ramogopa confirmed that load shedding was expected to result in more than 650,000 jobs being lost in 2022 and more than 850,000 jobs by 2023.
The official unemployment rate rose to 32.1% in the fourth quarter of 2023, according to Statistics South Africa's Quarterly Labor Force Survey. This increase was driven by a slight increase in the number of unemployed people, up from 31.9% in the previous reading. email and guardian Previously reported.
Holomisa said the party's response to unemployment includes identifying markets for small and medium-sized enterprises by promoting domestic and international connections.
He said the government would identify sources of loans and funding, as well as facilitate financing and investment in community businesses.
Looking at the old model to boost the economy, Holomisa said the government would re-establish the old maintenance department to maintain government buildings, schools, roads, pastures and field fences.
The party pledged to establish a waste management plan to clean up “South Africa, which has become the dirtiest country on the African continent” and to support small and medium-sized enterprises and micro-enterprises who want to enter the sector.
Holomisa said the UDM will establish a soil erosion control team to tackle erosion in the Donga River, rivers and other areas after heavy rains. Additionally, new forests will be planted in the area for windbreaks and firewood.
The UDM pledged zero tolerance to corruption and abuse of power, with effective procedures and the establishment of special courts to investigate and prosecute those in the public and private sectors involved in corruption.
He said an independent anti-corruption task team would be established in each state to determine the level of corruption and immediately put in place remedial measures.
He said the UDM would end the usurpation of the powers of fiscal officials by political leaders and the subsequent issuance of always corrupt political directives, and provide a system of protection for public servants who are whistleblowers.
South Africa has a law that protects whistleblowers, but it has been said that it “barks and doesn't bite”.
Confidentiality laws allow compensation to be considered if whistleblowing results in professional disadvantage, but the case of Athol Williams, an anti-corruption activist and whistleblower who blew the whistle to the United States, However, there are well-known cases where this did not happen. Bain & Company, a consulting firm based in the United States, was heavily involved in the state capture.
During his testimony before the committee in April 2021, President Cyril Ramaphosa thanked the many whistleblowers who had testified, saying they had “suffered a tremendous amount” for choosing to speak out against corruption. He said he had been under “pressure”. “I am sorry that in some cases they are not being treated properly,” he said.
Holomisa said collusion by private companies in price manipulation and interference in the currency must stop.
“The fight against corruption requires investment in IT-related training for civil servants and police, as well as close cooperation between relevant agencies,” he said.
He added that the UDM will establish a task team to resolve the issue of government pension and UIF claims being compromised. Civil servants and law enforcement will also be depoliticized, with appointments based solely on merit.