JAN MOGONWA | Citizen action would ensure SA's future

It’s open season for politicians to make promises, many of which they don’t intend to keep; the circus will be in your town soon. Just as we did when Cyril Ramaphosa came in dancing to Thuma Mina, we may be tempted to believe some party is coming to save SA. And we will be disappointed again.

Rutger Bregman captures our emotions well in his book Humankind; A Hopeful Story, stating society always oscillates between two choices; give us power or all is lost and the alternative; give us liberty or all is lost. We have recently launched a movement based on take your power or all is lost. We call it CITIZANS.

CITIZANS is a non-membership platform with the main objective of encouraging more South Africans to play a role in building a better SA, largely by contributing skills and knowledge. We aim to raise the bar on both public policy and governance credibility. SA has all the skills required to build a better country but most of these skills are in the private sector, it seems we have left the challenging task of managing the country to the least skilled among us.

The growing number of discouraged and undecided voters suggests South Africans may not be sold on the options on offer. We have too many political parties and too many bad political options.

The movement has identified SA's seven most urgent priorities.

First is the war on crime and looting; proposals include time in jail for employing illegal immigrants and reducing prisoner benefits. The second priority is social transformation.

We have gone through a period that has perpetuated inequality, creating fertile ground for an untransformed society. The onus is on South Africans to actively seek corrective measures and ensure their participation in changing things. New ideas include scrapping child grants and the R350 RSD grant, replacing them with a R1,500 public service allowance for 60 hours of community work.

Economically, the state is limping, and urgent measures are required. This is the third CITIZAN priority. After the energy crisis, the next is likely water. Water infrastructure has been neglected, and urgent maintenance is required.

Education and training is our fourth priority. Public education should be free up to NQF7. Capping free education at the school level prevents millions of deserving kids from access to a better life. The tuition paid at private schools should be regulated with a pricing cap of R60,000 per annum to make the schools accessible.

We live in the digital era, that is why digital evolution is the fifth priority.

Effective and efficient government serves as the sixth priority. Incompetence government is expensive, eroding state funds and rendering subpar service delivery. The proposal is to scrap the local and provincial layers of government, reducing ministers to 12 clusters.

 To address the economic limping an increase in corporate tax to 30% and an increase to 50% of personal income for individuals earning above R12m per annum is suggested as the seventh priority.

For these priorities to become a reality, active involvement from SA citizens is required. We are in this predicament because we have not taken our rightful place in society. We have not participated fully in the electoral process, and we have not realised our power.

Mogonwa is the national leader of CITIZANS