FF Plus 2024 Manifesto: It is time to restore and rebuild without the ANC

2 March 2024  

After thirty years in which the ANC has driven South Africa to the edge of ruin and bankruptcy with its poor governance, the time has come to make a change, to pick up the broken pieces and start rebuilding.

The FF Plus's 2024 Manifesto offers a realistic plan and a message of hope for the future. The journey will start at the polls on 29 May this year.

The main message is that it is possible to restore and rebuild South Africa. 

The more the cracks of ANC incompetence, corruption and mismanagement became visible to all, the more government tried to find a scapegoat to blame for all its failures.

The truth, however, is that the decay is the direct result of government's policy of black empowerment, which created an ideal breeding ground for everything that went wrong.

The FF Plus's Manifesto is a building plan offering viable solutions for building a better future. It entails:

- multi-party governments that keep the ANC out of power and restore the current decay;

- a free-market system to rebuild the economy;

- a small, central government playing a lesser role in citizens' lives;

- restoring local government;

- independent communities as building blocks;

- promoting communities' constitutional right to self-determination as the cement;

- and abolishing legislation that discriminates based on skin colour.

The best key to unlocking a better future and prosperity for all is restoring the economy. The ANC wants to keep people dependent on it for their survival. The FF Plus says that the public should be empowered to create their own prosperity through a healthy economy and equal opportunities.

South Africa urgently needs to be liberated from all forms of corruption, which has become endemic under ANC rule.

No country can make progress without electricity. So far, government's many promises of improvement have only disappointed.

The ANC blames sabotage. That is true. Government itself has sabotaged the economy with its mismanagement and corruption.

A growing economy will facilitate job creation. No government can sustainably keep creating jobs. The FF Plus's Manifesto offers a recipe for job creation which includes, among other things, creating an environment that attracts investment and promotes growth.

Accessible, quality education is the cornerstone of empowering the country's youth. The FF Plus proposes a system of parent- and community-driven mother-tongue education.

A society which is denied good healthcare simply cannot work and build. The condition of our state hospitals and clinics is a disgrace.

The ANC's solution is the National Health Insurance (NHI). It will only exacerbate the crisis. The NHI has to be opposed, even if the matter has to go to the Constitutional Court.

Land, forest and sea should be utilised in the process of rebuilding. Agriculture in South Africa is under siege from natural elements and a hostile government.

A volatile climate; increasing production costs; a lack of government support in the form of relevant research, disaster relief and sensible tariff protection; excessively violent and targeted farm attacks; as well as the policy direction of expropriation without compensation are but a few examples.

Fisheries are knee-haltered by serious mismanagement. Small-scale fishermen and -women, in particular, are currently being excluded by government's regulations and bureaucratic red tape. This exacerbates unemployment and poverty among these communities.

The environment needs to be protected. Desertification must be countered and turned around. Environmental resources need to be conserved; a balance must be struck between utilising these resources to create jobs and conservation.

There are probably very few South Africans who have not been personally affected by crime. The country's murder rate is currently the second highest in the world and no-one is safe. International organisations have even equated the ANC government to a criminal mafia.

It cannot go on like this. Rebuilding cannot take place in an environment where crime is rampant.

Human dignity should be restored through promoting language rights and multilingualism. This is more than just talk for the FF Plus, which is the only party that has received a PanSAT award for promoting multilingualism.

The FF Plus, therefore, also presents its 2024 Manifesto launch in all twelve official languages, including sign language. The Manifesto is even available in Braille. There are not only two official languages. Every language should be given equal recognition.

The rest of the FF Plus's Manifesto offers solutions relating to trade, defence, border control and other important issues which will ensure a prosperous future for all.

Yes, South Africa can be restored. It can certainly be rebuilt. We should not put it off any longer. The country is at a crossroads.

Issued by Pieter Groenewald, FF Plus leader, 2 March 2024