The African National Congress (ANC) election manifesto focuses on the five main issues of work, health, education, crime and rural development, ANC Gauteng chairperson Paul Mashatile said on Sunday.
In a speech prepared for delivery, Mashatile said the ANC wanted to create work, to provide quality healthcare, to improve the quality of education of children, to fight crime and to develop rural and impoverished communities.
Mashatile was speaking at the launch of the ANC’s election manifesto in Katlehong in Ekurhuleni on Sunday.
”We are making progress in reducing poverty and improving the quality of life of millions of South Africans,” Mashatile said.
”This we can say without fear of contradiction, that we have made massive progress in delivering on the pledge we made to our people during the 2004 general elections.
”In 2004, we committed ourselves to the objective of building a people’s contract to create work and fight poverty, so that by 2014, poverty and unemployment is reduced by half,” he said.
”We want our people to work. Most importantly, we will create decent work opportunities for all and ensure that our policies continue to empower the youth and women,” Mashatile said.
Fighting crime remained a key priority of the party. Certain categories of crime were reduced in certain parts of Gauteng over the past five years, he said.
”Crime has been reduced drastically and we are confident that working together with our people and the security agencies we will win the fight against crime.
”We will increase the number of patrollers to 10 000 by end of March this year. Together with you we will intensify our support to Community Policing Forums and build street committees.
The ANC would build new healthcare facilities, provide training and re-skilling for staff and would also recruit more health professionals in order to provide quality healthcare to all South Africans.
”Education remains central in ensuring that we produce skills required by the state and the economy.
”In the past few years we have, on a continuous basis, improved matric results and most importantly produced students who are competent in maths, science and technology,” he said.
The ANC would promote rural development, land reform, food production and security.
The creation of food gardens, support for farmers and ensuring that black and small farmers were developed would be part of development initiatives.
”These priorities are about developing our people. We will therefore continue to build a developmental state that has the capacity to intervene in favour of the poor,” Mashatile said. — Sapa