*PRESS RELEASE
In the face of South Africa’s bleak economic outlook marked by 41% unemployment, a constrained
business environment and decreased investor confidence, The Multi-Party Charter for South Africa
has unveiled our plan to arrest this decline by stabilising public finances, generating inclusive
economic growth, and enhancing the quality of our education system. Our approach to generating
job-creating economic growth is rooted in our principles, on which there is broad consensus
amongst the parties represented in The Charter.
The ANC’s mismanagement of our economy has created an unproductive and uncompetitive
economic environment, perfectly illustrated by Durban Harbour, the backdrop to this press
conference. Durban Harbour should be a place of busting economic activity, the gateway for South
Africa’s export products, but instead it is a major bottleneck throttling our economy, along with our
broken railways and education system.
The ANC’s mismanagement of our economy is not only reflected in our unemployment rate, which
stands at 41.2% but also in the pains that South African households experience against the everrising cost of living. With these urgent issues in mind, the The Multi-Party Charter, representing the
biggest alternative political bloc to the ANC by far, has come together to present a new economic
direction for South Africa.
All parties in The Charter are committed to these shared ideas and to working together in a new national governing coalition to grow South Africa’s economy and create jobs.
Presenting The Charter’s commitment to achieving our objectives of reducing unemployment and poverty, our plan adopts a two-pronged approach which focuses on fostering the creation of conditions conducive to economic growth while simultaneously growing the skills base of our workforce.
These shared principles are as follows:
➢ Driven by the necessity to position South Africa as a competitive market for innovation and
investment, the Charter will unlock the full potential of investment by removing barriers and
eliminating overly prohibitive limitations. We will therefore defend property rights and
introduce additional legislative measures to protect land, capital, and intellectual property
rights.
➢ Furthermore, the Charter will seek to create competitive local manufacturing and productive
capacity. To help South African businesses to become more competitive, we will reduce fuel
prices by specifically targeting the general fuel levy, reforming fuel taxes, and deregulating
the sector.
➢ To ensure value for money in government expenditure on economic infrastructure, we will
further enhance the efficiency and transparency of fiscal management. We will establish
fiscal discipline on government borrowing by capping the debt-to-GDP ratio annually through
implementing a “fiscal rule.” Crucially, we will ensure the independence of the South African
Reserve Bank.
➢ Critical to our plan is the need to unleash the full potential of the SMME sector by tapping
into the informal sector and introducing a broad range of regulatory exemptions for SMMEs
within their first three years of operation to improve the SMME survival rate. To further
support the sector, we will raise SMME’s VAT threshold to R5 million turnover and exempt
small businesses from all labour legislation other than the BCEA.
➢ To strengthen South Africa’s workforce capacity and skills to respond to our current and
future economic needs, the Multi-Party Charter will grow the skills base of the workforce
through visa system reforms to allow scarce skills to enter South Africa to replace skills lost
locally to emigration, recognise apprenticeships by reintroducing technical colleges and
gazette Trade Test Training that the TVET sector will perform.
➢ Importantly, the Charter recognises that we must future-proof our workforce by aligning skills
development mechanisms with current and future economic needs and enhancing the
competitiveness and productivity of our labour force.
➢ To equip every South African with a quality education that can address societal inequalities,
enable active participation in the economy, and increase productivity, the Multi-Party Charter will improve the quality of education by addressing the education crisis through the
depoliticisation of the education system, enhancing curriculum delivery, and reintroducing fitfor-purpose performance management systems.
➢ Through partnerships with universities, we will improve teacher quality and further this effort
by reintroducing teacher training colleges, implementing performance-linked remuneration,
and establishing a Schools Inspectorate to ensure the delivery of quality education.
➢ The Multi-Party Charter commits to ensuring that no child is left behind by proactively
identifying at-risk learners for additional support, capacitating our public education system
with in-house counsellors and educational psychologists, and guaranteeing that every child
has the means of transportation to get to school.
This approach represents the principles on which there is broad consensus among the parties within
The Charter with respect to South Africa’s economic outlook and what needs to be done to address
it. Beyond these shared principles, each individual Party has a number of unique policies which
they will present to the electorate throughout the campaign for the 2024 elections. Voters are
encouraged to consider what each Party offers in making their choice for 2024, confident that there
is agreement on the fundamental governing principles and approach.
Today is the first time in South Africa that a group of opposition parties representing the biggest
voting bloc outside of the ANC in South African history, come together to present a shared agenda
to grow our economy and create jobs. 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.
*PRESS RELEASE
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