---
title: "EFF manifesto's main points — nationalise stuff, scrap provinces and legalise dope"
description: "This week our guide to a party manifesto is the EFF’s. The party is polling at about 20%, with some pundits predicting it could become the official opposition. With a slogan of Land, Jobs and Electricity, the manifesto is radical populist, aimed at workers, unemployed people and young people."
type: "NewsArticle"
publisher: "Daily Maverick"
site: "https://www.dailymaverick.co.za"
section: "ROAD TO 2024 ELECTIONS"
author: "Ferial Haffajee"
author_url: "https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/author/ferialhaffajee/"
canonical_url: "https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2024-02-18-eff-manifestos-main-points-nationalise-stuff-scrap-provinces-and-legalise-dope/"
published: "2024-02-18T23:39:58"
lang: "en-ZA"
word_count: 691
---

# EFF manifesto's main points — nationalise stuff, scrap provinces and legalise dope

> This week our guide to a party manifesto is the EFF’s. The party is polling at about 20%, with some pundits predicting it could become the official opposition. With a slogan of Land, Jobs and Electricity, the manifesto is radical populist, aimed at workers, unemployed people and young people.

By Ferial Haffajee · Published 19 February 2024, 01:39 SAST

## Key points
- Grants and social policy
- Double social grants with specific amounts for different categories
- Introduce stipend for unemployed graduates
- Climate change and the environment
- No support for decommissioning coal-fired power stations

## Content

#### **Grants and social policy**

- Double all social grants;
- Old age pensions R4,180 a month; war veterans R4,220; disability R4,180; care dependency R4,180; foster child R2,260; child support R1,020; grant-in-aid R1,020.
- The manifesto does not specify a basic income but it introduces a stipend of R5,000 a month for unemployed graduates.

#### **Climate change and the environment**

- The EFF does not support decommissioning coal-fired power stations or the principles of a just transition;
- It supports local recycling, has a good ­landfill policy and will progressively introduce carbon taxes.

#### **Crime and corruption**

- Retrain police by 2027 and employ 100,000 more cops;
- Minimum sentence of 25 years for police found guilty of serious crime;
- Protect whistle-blowers;
- Economic justice courts for those unlawfully ­mistreated and exploited by corporations;
- Pardon all Fees Must Fall and political activists;
- A ‘corruption-free government’.

#### **Economy**

- The narrative arc of the EFF manifesto is captured by this sentence: “The economy in South Africa continues today to be under the ownership and control of white minority settlers”;
- The centrepiece is the nationalisation of mines, banks and other strategic sectors of the economy without compensation;
- No taxes for companies that create 2,000 full-time jobs across 30 special economic zones and the whole of the Northern Cape;
- Regulate lower and standardised data costs;
- Start state-owned companies in key sectors;
- Start a sovereign wealth fund, to be capitalised by foreign investors.

#### **Education**

- Free, decolonised education;
- Prioritise indigenous ways of learning and teaching;
- Focus on edu-tech;
- Scrap the IEB exams;
- 10,000 annual scholarships to top global universities;
- All universities to offer Swahili by 2027;
- R1-million grant for every black PhD student.

#### **Financial sector**

- Nationalise the Reserve Bank;
- Start state-owned banks, including a national state bank into which all grants and pensions must be paid;
- Jail CEOs of banks named by the Competition Commission as colluding to fix the value of the rand;
- Start a state-owned insurance company that government employees must use;

- 80% of all private retirement funds to be administered and run by black-owned companies.

#### **Food**

- Ensure all food is locally produced, not imported.

#### **Governance**

- Scrap provinces and strengthen local government;
- Reduce presidential power to strengthen Parliament;
- Resurface roads and bridges, and eradicate potholes, by 2028;
- Two new water treatment plants in each province;
- Eliminate pit latrines and upgrade education infrastructure.

#### **Foreign policy**

- Focus on Africa with a R187-billion annual investment to grow the African economy;
- Turn gaze towards the socialist-populist world, including Venezuela and Cuba.

#### **Health**

- Free universal healthcare;
- Each district to have a specialist hospital.

#### **Housing**

- Provide spacious, quality houses for all people;
- Regulate rents.
- Stop banks repossessing houses once 50% of the mortgage is paid.

#### **Jobs**

- National minimum wage of R6,000 a month with higher minimums in specified sectors;
- 24-hour economy with a three-shift system.

#### **Land**

- Expropriate land without compensation;
- Make all land state owned;
- Restrict foreign land ownership;
- Transfer 50% of land to black people within five years.

#### **Energy**

- Repair existing power station fleet;
- Stop decommissioning coal-fired power plants;
- Focus on carbon capture, clean coal and nuclear energy, with a starring role for Russia;
- Encourage shale gas exploration;
- Direct Eskom to develop a substantial renewable energy division;
- 200kWh/month free electricity to poor households.

#### **Migration**

- All migrants to be registered with Home Affairs;
- Beyond that, free movement of people across Africa.

#### **Public service**

- Focus on insourcing of all services the state buys;
- Effective use of conditional grants for municipalities.

#### **Reality check**

- This is an extremely long and expensive manifesto. The EFF would run an economy similar to Venezuela or Cuba’s, but with a mixed economy in some sectors;
- It would double (or even triple) the grants budget and the civil service wage bill. The minimum wage proposals would cause most businesses to pack up;
- The economy would collapse because of the proposals in the financial sector.

#### **Cool things**

- The focus on young people, students and the ­LGBTQI+ community is well considered, if expensive. **DM**

**Read more in Daily Maverick:**[Rise Mzansi aims to put brakes on blue light brigades](https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2024-01-28-rise-mzansi-manifesto-aims-to-put-brakes-on-blue-light-brigades/)

**Read more in Daily Maverick:**[Elections 2024 Knowledge Base](https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/elections-2024/)

**Read more in Daily Maverick:**[2024 elections](https://www-dailymaverick-co-za.webpkgcache.com/doc/-/s/www.dailymaverick.co.za/article_tag/2024-elections/)

*This story first appeared in our weekly*Daily Maverick 168*newspaper, which is available countrywide for R29.*

![DM-17022024-001.indd](https://cdn.dailymaverick.co.za/i/lrIG5NOtILRDdkNOwhQgXVJgPh4=/200x100/smart/filters:strip_exif\(\)/file/dailymaverick/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Chris-Sins-of-the-ANC-1.jpg)

*DM-17022024-001.indd*