Zuko Komisa
Colleen Makhubele, leader of SARA unpacks the party’s manifesto.
Point of View with Phemelo Motene recently spoke to South African Rainbow Alliance (SARA) Leader, Colleen Makhubele about the genesis of the party as well as their polices and soon-to-be-unveiled election manifesto.
Listen to the full conversation here:
On single unemployed grant for men
“The highest suicide rate in this country is amongst men, and men are not talking, men are very frustrated. You would know that as women, there are a lot of opportunities that have opened for us, policies that have pushed women in terms of employment, equity in business, etc. There are men who find themselves unemployed, who are single fathers. Whether the spouse is deceased or incapacitated to look after the child, for whatever reason. Those men are so frustrated because no one is paying attention to them.
On the minimum wage
“We don’t believe the minimum wage should be raised, especially for SMMEs, and those that are below a certain threshold of revenue. It is just not sustainable. Yes, you can raise the minimum wage when the economy is doing well, where we are at right now the economy is not doing well. 74% of our GDP is debt. How do we expect to create jobs?
On communities in rural areas
“We have spoken to some of the community members who have gone as far as saying they [the chief] live on the biggest houses here, saying we are in a watched home and there is a chief who is looked after by the mines and that they don’t care. It’s real, it’s there, it’s true. That has to be dealt with between the community and the local chiefs, it has to be a conversation where they sit down and have a conversation, and they decide where do we move from here, I don’t think it needs government intervention.”
She said that their manifesto documents are not yet publicly available and that they would be launching it around March.
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