Ahead of its first policy conference, next week, ActionSA chairperson Michael Beaumont said that his party is not what it was when it launched three years ago, and he promised that upcoming policy discussions will centre around the needs of South Africans and not around other political parties.

He was addressing the media on Thursday on the party's readiness for the policy conference, where he said that ActionSA will be running a positive campaign in 2024.

Beaumont shared that ActionSA is gaining momentum, now with around 225 000 members across the country and growing branches across the country.

The party will host its policy conference between September 12 and 14 where it will debate issues including energy security, corruption, economic prosperity and justice, law and order, education, and healthcare.

Beaumont described the ActionSA policies up for discussion as "innovative", "distinct" and "unique" and said his party has gone "out of its way" to attain experts from various fields with the common interest of moving South Africa forward.

Some of the experts who have been instrumental in drafting the party's policy document are Efficient Group's Dawie Roodt, ActionSA Director of Governance Dr. Nasiphi Moya, South African Cities Network's Liteboho Makhele, independent analyst Peter Fabricius, and the Institute for Global Dialogue's Dr. Philani Mthembu.

Some of the more notable proposals include discussions of a universal income grant that could create over a million jobs while growing the economy at a rate of 5%.

Beaumont said the party has discussed the repealing of the Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment (BBBEE) Act which it proposes being replaced with a new suite of social justice policies.

ActionSA believes that the current Act is not living up to its promises and is creating more challenges.

Moya said the Act has produced few billionaires while the levels of inequalities, poverty and unemployment have increased.

"The desired outcomes that the policy is talking about is failing to achieve and coincidentally when people talk about the story of BBBEE, they talk of the first beneficiary who was closed= to the late former Statesman Nelson Mandela. From there, we know that the people who have benefitted from that Act are people who are connected to the elite. As senate we could not ignore that while the intentions of the Act flow from the Constitution to say that it will redress the injustices of the past and all lives will be improved in South Africa, it is doing the opposite of that. It is leaving the majority of South Africans on the outside, " she explained.

She said the survival of the country depends on the Act.

IMMIGRATION AND ENERGY

ActionSA says it is also unapologetic on enforcing immigration regulations, including the deportation of foreign nationals found guilty of a crime, and undocumented foreign nationals without a legitimate claim to residency or asylum in South Africa.

Beaumont said that Home Affairs is failing many migrants who don't have the correct paperwork to be in the country.

"Nothing that we propose in terms of reforming illegal migration is in conflict with the Constitution because the very first principle of a nation starts with the border and with the idea that the country has not just the right but the obligation to determine the flow of people and goods across the border and under what conditions. We can never have a situation where immigrants are scapegoated," stressed Beaumont.

On the issue of the Gauteng Premier Panyaza Lesufi instituting a commission of Inquiry in to the recent apartment fire in the Johannesburg CBD, Beaumont told Polity that there is nothing that happened in Marshalltown that is not known to all South Africans. He said buildings are being hijacked in CBDs and he believes there are no bylaws being enforced across the country, especially since the departure of ActionSA leader Herman Mashaba as the City of Johannesburg Mayor.

He said law and order has given up in such envi...