MPs across parties show encouraging interest in IRR’s drive for real transformation

Responses from MPs reveal encouraging support from across various parties to the Freedom Bills drafted by the Institute of Race Relations (IRR), a legislative package aimed at genuinely transforming South Africa into a prospering, non-racial society.

The four bills in the package – the No More Race Laws Bill, the Value For Money Bill, the Right To Own Bill, and the Freedom From Poverty Bill – were published last year.

The IRR wrote to all MPs in November, inviting them to engage.

Says Makone Maja, IRR Strategic Engagements Manager: “The responses we have received so far give us confidence that we do have public representatives in Parliament who are genuinely interested in finding solutions beyond the outdated approaches of the political establishment. We have received replies that reveal curiosity and interest across parties, and we will be engaging with them all.”

The draft legislation sent to MPs includes the No More Race Laws Bill, which seeks to eliminate all racialised laws from the statute book, and the Right to Own Bill, which strengthens property rights and repeals excessive government expropriation powers contained in the Expropriation Act of 2024.

The Value for Money Bill is the IRR’s response to procurement failures which have not only been the subject of at least two state capture commissions – the Madlanga and Zondo commissions into capture of the country’s most critical institutions – but have also enabled corruption and malfeasance. This bill seeks to free the country from the resultant waste of taxpayer money, and stave off corruption and the bankrupting of state entities.

Adds Maja: “We look forward to stimulating new debates to parliament through the Bills and hope to end the monotony of the over 20 years of parliamentary debates defined by policy discussions that merely recycled old concepts and stale ideas. In tabling these policies, the IRR stands to, at worst, give a chance for novel ideas to be platformed and ventilated at the highest level of policy development in the country, which would strengthen the true meaning of a government formed by the people for the people.”

The IRR will keep the public informed about the nature of its discussions with parliamentarians and invites all members of the public to support the Bills by signing each of the pledges linked to the policies on the IRR website here.

Media contact: Makone Maja, IRR Strategic Engagements Manager Tel: 079 418 6676 Email: makone@irr.org.za

Media enquiries: Michael Morris Tel: 066 302 1968 Email: michael@irr.org.za