ActionSA had a press conference in Ekurhuleni on Tuesday in preparation for the 2024 National General Elections, which would be a first for the party since it was established in 2020.
ActionSA President Herman Mashaba delivering his remarks to the delegates said the party will be able to bring hope to many South Africans when the conference is done.
“Over the past three years, and particularly over the past eight months, we have engaged with a broad range of South African experts. It is for this reason that we assemble here for the next three days, and I can assure South Africans that what will emerge from this policy conference is a clear and distinct alternative that will bring hope to so many who have given up,” he said.
Mashaba said criminals who have been sentenced to life imprisonment, must stay in prison forever and he added that such measures will help strengthen the law system against criminals.
“I believe many South Africans have experienced brutality of crime from those who were not supposed to be set free in the first place. It is equally apparent that the implementation of capital punishment in South Africa would disproportionately prejudice the poor leading to their conviction and execution, while wealthy South Africans, accused of the same offences, would have the resources to avoid such a sanction.
“This fact was conveyed to me by experts who demonstrated the relative disadvantage experienced by poor South Africans confronted by the ineptitude of our current criminal justice system,” he said while calling for criminals to develop communities they have harmed through labour while they are in prison.
“This is why I believe the right approach is, rather, to change minimum sentencing so that violent criminals may never be released to harm another person. Lifetime imprisonment should mean exactly that. Moreover, criminals should earn their keep and make right with society through the provision of their labour to assist to build our nation’s infrastructure and improve the community they have harmed.”
Mashaba also said the government cannot be trusted to end loadshedding after failing to do so for a very long time.
“We cannot buy into the spin that this government should be trusted to simply end load-shedding because there is an election next year, when they have not addressed the problem in 16 years.
“As long as we continue to rely predominantly on captured state owned-entities like Eskom for the provision of quality services, we will continue to find ourselves in the dark.”
He also touched on the issue of migrants and said they must be documented and follow the rules of the country when they are here.
