ANC president Jacob Zuma will officially unveil the party's 2014 election manifesto at Mbombela Stadium on Saturday.
Below is a copy of the party's promise to the people of South Africa.
"Twenty years ago we began a journey to eradicate the legacy of apartheid.
It has been 20 years of freedomand democracy. The lives of our people have vastly improved and South Africa is a much better place than it was before 1994.
Over the last five years, the ANC has worked together with all South Africans to do more to fight poverty and unemployment and reduce inequality.
Despite the negative global economic situation, we have built on the social gains achieved since 1994. More of our people have been lifted out of extreme poverty; we have created more jobs
than before; expanded social grants, housing and basic services to our people; and further improved access to better education and health care.
Yet the challenges facing our country are immense.
Poverty, inequality and unemployment still affect the lives of many people. Corruption continues to erode our social fabric and undermine our development efforts. Our economy continues to feel the effects of the global economic slowdown.
South Africa has begun a new and far-reaching phase of its democratic transition.
This calls for bold and decisive steps to place the economy on a qualitatively different path. The National Development Plan (NDP) aims to eradicate poverty, increase employment, create sustainable livelihoods and reduce inequality by 2030."
Over the next five years, the ANC will:
BUILD AN INCLUSIVE ECONOMY THAT CREATES JOBS
•Establish capacity in the state to do long-term planning, drawing where necessary on expertise that exists in wider society.
•Promote local procurement by directing the state to progressively buy at least 75% of its goods and services from South African producers and support small enterprises, co-operatives and broad-based empowerment.
•Accelerate the roll-out of the massive economic and social infrastructure programme – especially in energy, transport, ICT and water – to unlock economic opportunities, create jobs and improve people’s quality of life.
•Empower, educate and create jobs for youth through job placement and internship schemes, allocating 60% of employment in infrastructure and other projects for youth, and promoting youth employment and training incentive schemes.
•Promote investment and access to credit in the productive economy from the financial sector, including development finance institutions, through bolder and far-reaching reforms.
•Consolidate the public works programme, creating six million work opportunities by 2019. Many of which will be of long duration.
•Investigate the modality for the introduction of a national minimum wage as one of the key mechanisms to reduce income inequality.
•Enforce measures to eliminate abusive work practices in atypical work and labour broking.
•Promote decent work and strengthen measures to speed up employment equity.
TRANSFORM OUR RURAL AREAS
•Implement rural development focusing on meeting basic needs, land reform and rural enterprise development, supported by localised markets, credit facilities and economic infrastructure.
•Increase investment in agricultural infrastructure in support of small-holder farmer development, prioritising former homeland communal areas.
•Expand the Food for All programme as part of the national integrated food and nutrition policy for procuring and distributing affordable essential foodstuffs directly to poor communities.
•Accelerate the settlement of remaining land claims submitted before the cut-off date of 1998, and re-open the period for lodgement of claims for restitution of land for a period of five years, starting in 2014.
ENSURE DECENT LIVING CONDITIONS AND SUSTAINABLE HUMAN SETTLEMENTS
•Provide one million housing opportunities for qualifying households in urban and rural settlements over the next five years.
•Accelerate provision of basic services and infrastructure in all existing informal settlements.
•Increase the supply of affordable housing through mobilisation of housing allowances for teachers, nurses, police officers, office workers and many others in the gap market.
•Connect an additional 1.6 million homes to the electricity grid over the next five years.
•Continue work to achieve universal access to running water and decent sanitation.
IMPROVE AND EXPAND EDUCATION AND TRAINING
• Make two years of pre-school education compulsory; eradicate adult illiteracy; attend to teacher development; and further improve the quality of basic education up to the senior grade.
•Open two new universities, expand the FET college sector, with greater support and adequate funding for students and introduce compulsory community service for all graduates.
ENSURE QUALITY HEALTH CARE FOR ALL
•Implement the next phase of the National Health Insurance (NHI) through the creation of a publicly funded and administered NHI Fund, strengthen and expand the free primary health care programme, improve management of public hospitals, and reduce the costs of private health care.
•Intensify the campaign against HIV and AIDS to ensure at least 4.6 million people receive antiretrovirals, and expand the male circumcision and HIV-counselling and testing programmes.
•Ensure chronic medication is available and delivered closer to where patients live, benefiting hundreds of thousands of South Africans.
EXPAND COMPREHENSIVE SOCIAL SECURITY.
•Increase the supply of social service professionals, introduce mandatory cover for retirement, disability and survivor benefits, and continue to roll out existing social grants to those who qualify.
•Urgently finalise policy discussions on a comprehensive social protection policy that ensures no needy South African falls through the social security net.
FIGHT CORRUPTION AND CRIME.
•Intensify the fight against corruption in both the public and private sectors through measures to restrict public servants from doing business and holding public officials individually liable for losses arising from corrupt actions. We will pursue action against companies involved in bid rigging, price fixing and corruption in past and current infrastructure build programmes.
•Require any ANC member or ANC public representative found guilty before a court of law to step down from any leadership positions in the ANC, government and society.
BUILD UNITED NATION AND PROMOTE SOCIAL COHESION.
•Strengthen participatory democracy in workplaces, schools, hospitals and clinics, and in our communities.
•Promote a culture of dialogue, accords and commitments across society as part of our national effort to build a social compact for growth and development.
•Ensure public representatives are constantly in touch with the people and listen to people’s concerns and needs.
OUR PLEDGE.
This manifesto is our pledge to move South Africa forward, together.
This manifesto sets out carefully considered and bold commitments that can be funded over the next five years and beyond. All levels of government will implement this manifesto, and we will ensure that it is effectively monitored.
While the ANC government will take a lead, each and every one of us – communities, workers, private sector and civil society – has a role to play in the implementation of the manifesto.
As the ANC, we further pledge to:
•Remain true to our values of courage, service, self-sacrifice, human solidarity, integrity, humility, honesty, hard-work, self-discipline and mutual respect.
•Work with our allies and the people to move South Africa forward through the commitments we have set out in this manifesto.
•Strengthen the bonds of trust and solidarity with our people where these have been broken and continue to listen to and effectively communicate with our people.
•Act against ANC members and ANC elected representatives found guilty in a court of law.
The commitments of this manifesto are coherent, realistic and achievable. As the leading political representative of South Africans, with unmatched experience, capacity and political determination, the ANC will work to mobilise and unite all our people around this manifesto.
