The African National Congress (ANC) has been launched its 2014 election manifesto in Nelspruit on Saturday around South Africa, with President Jacob Zuma delivering the keynote address. Focussing on infrastructure and corruption, a number of questions present themselves.

Much of the infrastructure elements of the manifesto have simply been co-opted in the content from the National Development Plan (NDP).The NDP is an initiative of National Government and was, as such, commissioned by and paid for by the state. That the ANC have co-opted much of it as the substance of their manifesto is somewhat ironic, given the party’s statement about other parties withholding their manifestos to “copy and paste” from the ANC’s.

The basis of the manifesto, according to the ANC, are the remaining challenges presented by poverty, inequality and unemployment. To achieve this, the party states: ‘We must now implement radical socio-economic transformation to meaningfully address this triple challenge. That is what our Manifesto talks about.’

President Jacob Zuma stated over the weekend that tackling corruption was also a priority: “We are changing the tender system, which has been such a big problem in our country,” he said. Although not providing detail in his address, the  Infrastructure Development Bill could be seen as the initial attempts at changing the tender system – especially at Local Government level – and provides legal weight to the Presidential Infrastructure Co-ordinating Commission. This has been criticised by the South African Local Government Association and Business Unity South Africa (amongst others) for adding yet more red tape for municipalities to wade through, and far too much power in the presidency, who could ultimately have signing power on all major tenders.

“We are also looking to the infrastructure programme, which creates both decent jobs and work opportunities during the building or refurbishment of dams, schools, universities, clinics, roads and other infrastructure,” noted Zuma.

Nicholas McDiarmid, Editor, IMIESA