STRAIGHT TALK
30 January 2024
On Wednesday, the eleven parties to the Multi-Party Charter gathered at the Durban Harbour to set out for the nation how a Charter government will grow South Africa’s economy and create jobs at scale. We chose to do this at Durban Harbour because, as with government itself, this port should be a powerful enabler of economic activity but is instead a severe bottleneck throttling it.
Our key message was that the Multi-Party Charter will seek to make South Africa’s economy as attractive as possible for investors and as easy as possible for businesses big and small to start, grow and thrive. We will treat entrepreneurs, investors and businesses from informal traders to conglomerates as valued partners, because we recognise that the only thing that creates sustainable jobs is private investment in productive enterprises, both big and small.
We set out some of the meaningful steps we will take to create the conditions necessary for economic activity to flourish (see below). Our approach is underpinned by a commitment to an open economy where far more economic decision-making power and agency rests with the people of South Africa rather than with government. This is the only way to unleash the immense untapped potential of the people and resources of South Africa, and therefore the only way to lift millions of people out of grinding poverty and into the dignity of a job.
The formation of the Multi-Party Charter has produced a realistic pathway to power for an alternative government whose approach marks a distinct departure from the patronage-driven, closed economy, centralized state control of the ANC. In the 2024 general election, voters now have a clear choice between The Charter’s job-creating approach and the ANC’s job-killing approach to the economy.