BOSA’S POLITICAL VISION
Mmusi Maimane believes his new political party can tackle the many complex and social ills plaguing South Africa. Critics aren’t convinced given the lack of concrete plans on how to achieve this but Mmusi is ambitious in his goals for changing the country.
ECONOMY The first priority, he says, will be to ensure every household has at least one income coming into it. He says this can only be achieved by growing the economy, stimulating small business and making sure the lights stay on and water comes out of the tap.
In the short term, his government would fix Eskom by allowing independent power producers online. Then in the midterm, nuclear power stations would have to be considered.
Although this is an unpopular option with environmentalists and economists, he says it’ll need to be part of any diversified energy plan aimed at ensuring that supply meets demand.
He’s confident that all these measures would allow for economic growth of more than 5% a year.
EDUCATION He wants to ensure every child who starts school finishes because the country needs more graduates.
“Less than 12% of our citizens will end up at university. That means an unskilled labour pool. Our education goal is to empower state schools to become as competitive as private schools,” Mmusi says.
He says this will be done by building more public schools, particularly in townships.
HEALTH Bosa envisages state-funded medical insurance and a system where people in need of primary healthcare can choose between public and private practitioners. It’s essentially the same principles as the national health insurance (NHI) currently under discussion. So far the NHI pilot programmes and planning have been plagued by problems, including how it will be funded. It’s not clear how Bosa will do things differently.
LAW & ORDER “What I want is a police force that’s a combination of traffic management and law enforcement so that your crime intelligence sits closer to the ground and the people,” he says.
“Where we have a shortage of police to the proportion of citizens we also increase and use digital interventions and data management so that we know who we are policing.”