MK Party promises 400,000 jobs in Durban in two years

The uMkhonto weSizwe Party says it wants to attract investment, reindustrialise Durban and create at least 400,000 job opportunities over the next one to two years.

The promise was posted on the party’s official X account on Wednesday and attributed to its first deputy president, Duduzane Zuma. The post carried the party’s campaign hashtags, including one for next year’s local government elections and its MasibuyeleBantwini slogan.

That is the whole of the announcement as the party has made it public. It does not say where the investment would come from, which industries would be rebuilt, what the jobs would pay, whether they would be permanent or temporary, or how the party would measure the 400,000 figure. Durban is currently governed by a coalition in which the ANC is the largest party, and the MK Party does not run the metro.

The scale of the claim is worth stating plainly. Four hundred thousand opportunities in one to two years in a single metro would be among the largest job-creation drives attempted in post-apartheid South Africa. The party has not said what it would cost, who would fund it, or what powers a municipality has that would make it possible. The Enquirer put those questions to the party and did not receive a response before publication.

What the post does establish is the shape of the MK Party’s pitch to Durban voters. Investment first, then industry, then jobs, with the party presenting itself as the vehicle for bringing capital into the city rather than redistributing what is already there. It is a growth argument, not a welfare one, and it is aimed squarely at a metro with a large industrial base, a working harbour and high unemployment.

The party has made economic redress and land central to its public identity since its formation, and its 2024 election campaign leaned heavily on those themes. The Durban promise shifts the emphasis towards private investment and manufacturing, and it is the clearest jobs commitment the party has attached to a specific city ahead of the 2026 local government elections.

The 400,000 figure now sits on the public record as the party’s own target. Whether it survives contact with a campaign, a coalition negotiation and a municipal budget is the question voters in Durban will be able to test.