AIC Manifesto

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“A People’s Charter for inclusive development”
“WORKING TOGETHER PURPOSELY FOR INCLUSIVITY”
1. Preamble
As traditionally understood in South Africa, the immediate and long term objectives of our
organization will have no meaning without the mandate of the electorate (voters). True to
our traditions, we will continue to place ordinary South Africans at the center of our
programmes. Where we co-govern currently –i.e. in the successful Ekurhuleni Metropolitan
(Gauteng); the Rustenburg Municipality (North West); and the Nelson Mandela Bay
Metropolitan (Eastern Cape), we have accelerated massive social infrastructure projects –
in the form of desalination plants, sewer systems and roads – as well as employing
unskilled, ordinary South Africans.
Except for their poor service delivery track record and corruption, there is nothing new
that other discredited political parties are offering.Our three (3) representatives in
Parliament have been enraged by the governing party’s dictatorship over the demarcation
of municipal boundaries , without the will of the people – in areas such as Motse, Matatiele,
Vuwani and Malamulele); the pit latrines that our communities have to contend with; the
endless abuse of women and children;the increasing cost of living because of high tax and
fuel levies; and the lack of agency and coherent planning in managing South Africa’s porous
borders.
Through our dully inclusive Manifesto, we shall make these lived and people centered
commitments:

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2. Addressing Unemployment and Job-Creation
Unemployment remains stubbornly high in South Africa at 27.2%. Most hard-hit are young
people of the poor and the working class families – approximately 52.04% of the youth
population in South Africans is not employed.
Our commitments will:
 Tackle the entry-level job requirements, such as experience, which have not
only worsened the plight of young people but also excluded them from
participating in mainstream economy;
 Prioritize youth, woman and people with disabilities empowerment by
creating local municipal-business partnerships so as to in-source within the
municipal-demarcated areas where people live;
 Promote local producers, suppliers and distributors of goods and services,
especially women, youth and people with disabilities through direct
procurement by retail conglomerates, mining entities, Banks etc.;
 Link University students with the closest companies –during the winter
holidays to gain practical work experience
 Create enabling environment for SMME sustainability through set-asides,
preferential procurement and funding programs
 Absorb Grade 12 under achievers through voluntary military conscription ,in
order to re-skill them in the areas of defence and security;
 Absorb Grade 12 under achievers into artisans skills development programs
to bè employable or take up self employment opportunities in the vast
Growing second economy.
 Promote partnerships with the private sector to increase the size and quality
of vocational Training Centres;
 Underscore equitable employment,income primarily for the semi-skilled
workers.

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3. Economic Growth for Inclusiveness
Our economy is not growing and continues to bleed high levels of unemployment, poverty,
inequality and rural land injustice. Revising our growth projections from 1.8 percentage
points to 1.3, the World Bank has yet again confirmed the structural deficiencies of our
economy. We have solutions. Where we co-govern, we:
 Have empowered Small Medium and Micro Sized Enterprises (SMME’s)
through supplier development schemes, such as funding and BEE
partnerships;
We will therefore:
 Develop Preferential Policy Framework, where we co-govern, to force contractors to
subcontract at least 35 % of the actual work for the benefit of women-led SMMEs;
 Lease public land to foreign investors to generate revenue for the state;
 Create co-operatives and small scale farmers to boost local economy and
development
 Lessen the costs of doing business and reduce red tapes.
 Create platforms in the rural areas to empower communities on income generating
activities practiced in their areas
 Develop policy framework on introduction of Agri-parks and small industries at
community level.

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4. Land Reform for Agricultural Production and Human
Settlements
To restore the human dignity of South Africans it is only fair to level the playing field, and
have an equitable share of the land amongst the people. How the land is used will be
monitored on an on-going basis by the state. Our views are that land should be
expropriated without compensation, for the following reasons:
Agricultural Production Human Settlements
 Land so acquired will be earmarked for
cutting-edge agricultural projects, like
co-operatives and community agri-
parks, so as to widen the pool of food
producers and, by and large, create local
employment in the farming
communities;
 Social housing is a realistic challenge in
South Africa –under our people’s
government decent houses to all
qualifying South Africans over the age of
18, irrespective of their gender, race or
political affiliation, will be made
available;
 Investment on agro-processing value
chain will be backed by infrastructure
support systems to empower agri-
 No person will own more than 1 RDP
house, and should this be detected the
confiscation route will be inescapable;

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producers to beneficiate on their own
terms;
 To promote access to markets both
domestically and internationally for our
local farmers, we will partner with agri-
centric lobby groups, the international
co-operations and agri-business to
advance the interests of the African
farmers and producers;
 To improve human settlements, we will
maintain our sanitation, sewer and
drainage infrastructure to bring about
decent and hazard-free houses; and
 Since land belongs to all the people, we
will ensure that it is used most
productively and that those who will be
working the land generate income; and
 Most significantly, we will augment the
profit margins of their anchor sheets;
 The size, quality and architecture of the
RDP houses will have to affirm the
human dignity of our people.
5. Health
The South African public health care system is in the state of paralysis. Not only does it
excel in poor health care services, it also brags of old dilapidating infrastructure. As an
organization, we have identified the following key challenges that we will address, as soon
as our people are inaugurated into government:
 Clinics will open 7 days a week, 24 hours and all of them will have designated
memorandum of understanding and Chronic Management Center’s
 Clinics will also have Referral Mandates, applicable to all the district, provincial and
national hospitals
 We will incorporate therapy and offer ongoing counseling progammes within the
regime of health care services; this will solely be extended to chronicle-prone patients.
Their immediate families will be earmarked for annual education sessions, especially

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for the purposes of creating immediate patient support and raising awareness about the
role of family support systems and the community support at large.
 To make public health care accessible, we will rezone fully-fledged and effective rural
clinics to be available at each Ward. In addition, Mobile Clinics will be an added facility
to strengthen the clinics and they will be monitored and evaluated to maximize
efficiency, accountability and the quality of their service.
 We will have partnerships with the local Non-governmental organization’s at the
rezoned clinics to ensure efficiency, responsiveness and to maximum impact in
achieving targeted goals.
 The Packaging, distribution and selling of consumer products will be managed via a
dedicated health Inspectorate Unit, in order to foster compliance with the health
regulations.
 We will improve professional services both at the public hospitals and clinics by
employing qualified and professional people.
 Healthcare workers play a critical role in ensuring improved health of our patients
within our communities. They become the necessary engine to motivate and assist
those who are bed-ridden and chronically ill. For this reason they need to be correctly
remunerated; be trained and capacitated to ensure effectiveness.
 We will increase the number of Emergency medical Services employees and avail more
ambulances in our communities.
6. Education
Our education system is designed to perpetuate the inequality gaps seen everywhere in the
country. It is designed not to empower our people but rather continue their oppression by
not equipping them to become problem-solvers, critical thinkers and productive leaners. It
is unacceptable that the pass rates are continuously lowered by the ministry of Basic
Education. By the time they reach the tertiary phase, these students are not prepared to
cope with the complexities of the universities’ curricular.

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Basic Education Higher Education
 We will decolonize basic education and
teach our children about our own
indigenous knowledge systems, culture,
governance and Africanism;
 Free education is non-negotiable.
 All former NSFAS beneficiaries’
outstanding loans will be cleared off;
 do away with the rationalization of
schools’ policy.
 Mega size schools do not always address
the structural, socioeconomic issues
affecting our learners;
 Our education system produces poor-
learner outcomes. As a result we will
establish one, solid education system in
the country - with a curricula alive to the
lived conditions of our communities;
 As an alternative, we will revamp mud
schools, properly equip them and attract
competent staff complement. We will
further provide allowances at these
schools to incentivize teachers.
 We will have accreditation exit classes at
the end of each phase in high school. In
this way we will be able to document
students who leave the education system
before grade 12
 The Scholar transport and Feeding
Scheme systems are non-negotiable. We
will roll-them over to benefit children in
the most rural, poverty-stricken areas, as
 We will demarcate housing residences
for tertiary students upon receipt of
their application.
 We will convert NSFAS loan into
Bursary, so as to alleviate the burden of
over-indebted graduates;
 We will work on improving Technical
and Vocational Education and Training
colleges. These include recapitalizing
them, revising their curricular content
and equipping them sufficiently to
produce employable graduates
 align Technical and Vocational Education
and Training colleges curricular with
universities’ curricular.

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well as those living with disabilities.
 We will ensure employment of
professional teachers with special
expertise to handle children at
foundation phase.
7. Safety and Security
All South Africans deserve to live without fear of reprisal, victimization and crime. The
governing parties’ lack of coherence, of planning and of managing our porous borders
remains a great impediment to achieving secured and safer communities. To turn the tide,
we commit to:
 Root out corruption in all our borders; This includes policing our borders 24/7
repatriating undocumented immigrants, and tightening our laws in relation to what

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is acceptable under international law in terms of accommodating political
immigrants in the country;
 Increase police visibility in our communities by makes police services (police
stations) closer to the people.
 Fight crime, gender-based violence and gangsterism by stationing more police in
our communities, including social care workers and family advocates to help combat
the scourge of social decay
 Protect the independence of IPID from political interference, in order to promote
high ethical standard within the police service
 Increase police capacity and improve their competency
 Engage communities by ensuring that community policing forums exists in every
ward
 Establish Victims of Crime Support Center’s, which will be overseen by
professionals, such as Psycho-therapist, Counselors, Clinical psychologists and
skilled Detectives.
 We will also ensure protection and safety of our schools and hospitals.
 Law of Evidence will be emphasized by the organization as the main area of focus
when training police officers hence most cases are jeopardized the lack of evidence
when presented in court.

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8. Corruption and Maladministration
South Africa is a cesspool of corruption. Taxpayers shouldn’t be bailing out a corrupt-
infested state. Corruption creates a toxic-riddled society with no values, rule of law and
order. At the state level it affects service delivery, diverts resources meant for the poor and
development and stunts socio-economic inclusion.
To address all these, the AIC
 believes that tender system is the root of corruption in this country, therefore this
organization will totally do away with tender system and instead replace it with
permanent public works programmes with capacity to maintain services provided.
 Will ensure public participation (people taking centre stage in governance) through
human rights education to eliminate maladministration and ill-treatment by
government officials so as to have more accountable government officials to the
constituencies we are serving.
 Introduce lifestyle audits to all senior government officials
 Create Corruption-bust Units, more similar to the Scorpions, as corruption-negating
weapons. These Units will be depoliticized and independent.
 Self-monitor the deployment of so-called cadres in government.

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9. Social Development and Cohesion
South Africa has to transform into a fully-fledged, social welfare state. We recognize that
our family structures are in a bad state. The use and abuse of drugs by the youth is
alarming. Our social relations with other races are at an all-time low. Public morality is in
the state of decline. The greatest challenge is that the church which is ideally the vanguard
currency for moral regeneration has lost its rightful position and voice within our fractured
communities.
We will intervene as the people’s party, by doing the following:
 Our social grants programmes will be extended to include unemployed graduates.
 Old age homes will be state-sponsored to place the constitutional obligation on
government functionaries to care, maintain and advance their functionality
 Engage and assist indigenous and traditional churches to grant them advisory status
to government
 Create regulations to regulate church operations to affirm the human dignity of our
people.

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It takes a village to raise a child, the organization is seriously concerned about the street
kids in this country, therefore it will ensure that these kids are placed in places of safety
where they will be rehabilitated and trained in various technical skills, so that they become
useful and benefiting the country. Those families that are getting social grants on behalf of
these street kids should be investigated to take responsibility.
•Mentally- challenged people are also the concern of the organization, therefore we will
ensure that they are placed in mental health hospitals under strict monitoring
10. RECOGNISING ALL HUMAN RIGHTS
The African Independent Congress recognizes and respects all human rights as enshrined in the
constitution, but we strongly direct our focus on water and sanitation as it affect both people in urban
and in rural areas.
 WATER AND SANITATION
Water is a basic human right and no one must be deprived the right to access clean and
habitable water. Sanitation on the other hand is a means to entrench human dignity. In
addition we need to control the use and management of water resources in the country.
This government doesn’t have control of its water resources; during droughts, it relies on
the mercy of the private sector to salvage its encountered problems. Moreover its
sanitation infrastructure is disastrous; it feeds water-borne diseases and creates stench-
ridden communities.
To fix all this mess, we will
 Take control of all water resources both private and unoccupied and place them
under the new ministry of Water and Ecosystem Affairs;
 Fix all Water Boards and demarcate their line functions
 Ensure that all communities (urban and rural) access clean purified water in every
household.

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11. Supporting the System of Traditional Authority
The authority of traditional monarchies and royalties is the backbone of rural communities.
Traditional Authorities existed long before the birth of democracy that we now enjoy.
There was rule of law amongst us although it was not documented in paper. It’s time that
the traditional leaders as custodians of our culture collectively needs inclusion to
development activities, they carry a developmental responsibility to materially change
their communities. Their role in Municipal Councils must go beyond endorsements to
include active participation. Traditional leaders to be part of the custodians of the (IDP)
local integrated development plan. Their role is often subverted and undermined, solely
because they rely on government to fund their rural projects. This must change.
This change will include:
 Creating an independent national Office of the Traditional Leaders, similar to the
Office of the Chief Justice with budgeting, administration, procurement and shared
services powers. This is to safeguard their independence, institutional autonomy
and largely to make them regain their standing as paramount leaders.
 Affording Traditional Authorities well-paid up benefits and salary packages
 Making a point that Indigenous law is upheld and only appealable through the
traditional councils.
12. Electoral system
Our electoral system is but one main factor that creates unresponsive, corrupt and
unaccountable government. When our people are denied the right to elect their preferred
representatives, in order to give them the direct mandate and instruct them to uplift their
communities, the strength of their civic duty is diminished. We will therefore change the
current electoral system, which is against the will of the voters, and establish a people-
centred electoral democracy.

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14. POVERTY ERADICATION PROGRAMS
We will employ an integrated approach that would espouse the following:
 Community development where communities are capacitated to create their own
wealth through various community projects like cooperatives, income generating
projects, etc.
 Assist these community projects by developing their business plans, funding
proposals and even in identifying potential funders, all the above will be
accompanied by training them on the above to be self-independent.
15.TOURISM
South Africa is one the most beautiful countries with natural resources to attract tourists.
Tourists are important in any country to boost economy of that country. The African
Independent Congress will ensure safety and protection of these resources and of tourists
when travelling around the country, by employing and training tour guys.
We duly present these commitments in the spirit and hope of gaining your support to
achieve an inclusive development, economic growth and integration for our communities.
……..END…..
“A People’s Charter for inclusive development”