While launching his party’s branches for the first time since its inception five years ago, ActionSA leader Herman Mashaba heard in KwaZulu-Natal on Friday and Saturday that people were unhappy with the Government of National Unity’s (GNU) performance.
ActionSA is launching its branches across the country with the hope of growing stronger and becoming the future’s formidable opposition party in Parliament.
While in Durban on Friday, Mashaba interacted with affluent and impoverished community members, who, he said, expressed dissatisfaction with the GNU’s performance.
He said all leaders of his party were crisscrossing the country collecting views about the performance of the GNU, a year after it was formed.
“I am responsible for talking to entrepreneurs, as you know my background (as a businessman),” he said.
Mashaba said he would elaborate on the strategy to grow his party in a media briefing in Parliament on Tuesday.
He said his party had, after last year’s general elections, which produced no absolute winner, declined to join the GNU and opted to remain in the opposition benches because with the DA in the government, “there was not going to be constructive opposition”.
He said his party was closely monitoring the GNU and would report on its performance quarterly.
According to him, his visit to Chatsworth and La Lucia was “well, well received”.
“The main purpose was to meet the people to hear their views on the GNU so that we can give an assessment of ordinary people,” he said.
Mashaba said the party was also collecting people’s views of the GNU through its social media platforms.
“The question we ask the people is, has this GNU improved your lives, or your lives have gone worse, or remained the same?
“People, including businesses, are very unhappy in terms of crime, which in Johannesburg and KZN is getting out of hand.”
He said people expressed concern about the GNU having one of the biggest cabinets in the world, with no benefit to the citizens.
He stated that people were unhappy about the economy and the porous borders, which have led to illegal foreigners flooding into the country.
“Porous borders are an issue as South Africans are gatvol with illegal foreigners.”
The party launched a branch at KwaDukuza Municipality’s Ward 3 in the north coast on Saturday, and they will launch two others on Sunday.
He said even if a branch could have 200 active members, they would be able to do a door-to-door recruitment campaign and get people to register as voters.
The party would now charge a membership fee of R10 a year, “so that whoever becomes a member is committed”.
He said some branches have already been launched in Gauteng and Limpopo, and he gave the party’s KwaZulu-Natal leader, Zwakele Mncwango, a mandate to launch more branches.
Mashaba stated that the launching of branches would focus on KwaDukuza, eThekwini, and Newcastle municipalities, where the party obtained council seats after the 2021 local government elections.
His party has four councillors in eThekwini, five in KwaDukuza, one in Ilembe District Municipality, and three in Newcastle.
He said he would not, for now, share the whole strategy he intends to apply to grow his party in KwaZulu-Natal, which already has the dominance of the ANC, IFP, uMkhonto weSizwe Party, and the DA.
“We are going to do what we did in 2021. We are only going to contest strategic municipalities where no one would govern without ActionSA,” he said.
Under ActionSA’s Dr Nasiphi Moya as the mayor of Tshwane Municipality, the city has been commended for having improved its service delivery, which Mashaba said was through following the ethical leadership formula he applied when he was the City of Johannesburg mayor.
“Respecting our coalition partners. Under ActionSA in Tshwane, illegal foreigners are not welcome, and all spaza shops belong to South Africans.
“We are insourcing our cleaners and security. We are dealing with all people who are not paying for services, and we are arresting corrupt officials and also putting them in disciplinary hearings and firing them, which is the same script I used in Johannesburg,” he said.
Mashaba added that Moya was treating small businesses with the same seriousness she gives big businesses.
“We are very proud of this black woman who is doing amazing work, and she is not in the game for friendship but there to serve the people,” said Mashaba.
