PA

Municipalities should keep the right to buy electricity from private power companies as well as from Eskom.

The 2024 manifesto says power generation must be liberalised further and Eskom should become a transmission company, which means buyers such as municipalities would source power from other producers.

Unpaid household electricity debts should be collected, not cancelled.

At the PA's Nelson Mandela Bay campaign launch on 21 September 2026 the party leader said the metro must write off everybody's debt and start on a clean slate, and the mayoral candidate specified households with homes worth R1 million or less. It is a one-metro campaign promise covering all municipal household debt, which includes electricity, so the write-off position is clear but conditional on home value.

Eskom's older coal power stations should close on their planned dates.

The 2024 Turnaround Strategy says the PA will not allow coal generation to be abandoned too quickly at the expense of the economy, but that a more sustainable generation mix must be pursued over time, with renewables, new nuclear baseload and gas. A PA MP told Parliament in May 2026 that the move to renewables should be accelerated.

Where a municipality cannot keep the water running, it should hire a private company to run its water system.

The 2024 manifesto says privatisation of the water industry must be avoided, allowing only supply partnerships with mines, and wants government employees rather than paid contractors to manage service delivery.

The state should give a free house to every household that cannot afford to buy one, not only the poorest.

The 2024 manifesto says the state must house its poorest citizens but prefers capped building-material subsidies for self-building, serviced land, council rental flats and social housing, and treats RDP houses as only for the very poor. That is help in other ways rather than a free house for every household that cannot afford to buy.

The law should make it quicker to remove people who have recently moved onto land without permission.

The 2024 manifesto would set a cut-off date after which building any further informal structures is not permitted, map settlements so that new structures can be "criminalised", in its word, and protect cleared unsafe land from further "land grabs". Existing settlements would keep being upgraded, while building new structures after the cut-off would be an offence.

In some cases the state should be able to take land for housing or public use without paying the owner.

The 2024 manifesto wants the state to buy more private land, to buy unproductive land at market rates and to set up a fair payment system for land identified for reform, so it pays for land rather than taking it for free.

The death penalty should be brought back for murder.

The 2024 manifesto commits a PA government to bringing back the death penalty for severe murder cases where guilt is proven beyond reasonable doubt, and lists murder first among the qualifying offences.

Only South African citizens and permanent residents should be allowed to own spaza shops and other small township businesses.

The 2024 manifesto says most spaza shops are now foreign-owned, often without the legal right, and that the state must intervene so the township economy benefits South Africans, mainly by enforcing immigration law rather than by reserving these businesses for citizens.

Foreign nationals without legal status should get only emergency care at public clinics and hospitals.

The 2024 manifesto says illegal migrants are rewarded for breaking the law by being able to use healthcare and other services while in the country, and that this attraction must be vastly diminished.

Unemployed adults should get a basic income grant well above the current R370 a month.

The 2024 manifesto says grants are needed for the disabled, the very poor and the elderly, that everyone else should work and grant-taking should be discouraged, but that poor people are entitled to grants if there is not enough work. It does not propose a permanent basic income grant or any amount.

People earning more than about R1.9 million a year should pay more tax than they do now.

The 2024 manifesto says the rich must bear the brunt of taxation but should not be taxed so heavily that they stop setting up businesses. It does not say whether high earners should pay more than they do now.

When awarding tenders, municipalities should keep giving extra points to black-owned businesses.

The 2024 manifesto says BEE legislation as it exists must go and that businesses dealing with the state should pay into an empowerment fund instead of meeting ownership requirements, and it wants public procurement to be more competitive.

The National Health Insurance (NHI) scheme should go ahead.

The 2024 manifesto says the PA is not opposed to a more comprehensive state healthcare system such as the NHI, but the state must first prove it can use the money it already has before asking for more.

Public universities and colleges should be free for all students, not only for those from poorer homes.

The PA's 2024 manifesto wants tertiary education made more affordable and even free for deserving students, with extra financial aid for scarce fields such as engineering and medicine on condition that state-assisted graduates do not emigrate for an agreed period. It also proposes a state fund giving education loans at roughly inflation-level interest, so the position is a targeted and loan-based middle path rather than free study for all or funding for the poor only.

Government should end race-based measures such as BEE in jobs, contracts and benefits.

The 2024 manifesto wants racial categories phased out as official identity markers and BEE legislation ended as it stands, and keeps race-based tools such as a fund for black-owned businesses, a levy on companies that are not representative, and rewards for white farmers who transfer skills to black and coloured farmers.

Government should play a smaller part in the economy than it does now.

The 2024 manifesto says the PA supports and promotes the free market and that too much government interference in the movement of goods and services is often harmful, while keeping the state as a referee against monopolies and allowing trade protection when needed.