President Cyril Ramaphosa’s state of the nation address (Sona) will be another round of empty promises unless he dumps “policies that have brought us unemployment, poor economic growth and the crippling electricity crisis”.
This is according to opposition parties and civil society groups, which expect little from the president’s speech except for “old songs” about service delivery without any substance.
They told Sunday World they had all but given up on any prospects of Ramaphosa unveiling cogent and plausible plans to address the country’s crises.
Political pressure is mounting on Ramaphosa to fast-track reforms in the economy and respond to the rising food prices ahead of his Sona address on Thursday.
UDM leader Bantu Holomisa said he expects Ramaphosa to sing the same old song at the podium. “You can expect a cut and paste of previous speeches and all empty promises,” he said.
Cosatu said Ramaphosa’s inability to deal with unemployment is among his key failures.
“There was huge hope when the government announced the Presidential Employment Stimulus (PES). Many young people benefited in the programme as some were employed as teaching assistants. It was initially a good programme, but there were massive budget cuts… We wanted more money to be put into the PES,” said spokesperson Sizwe Pamla.
“We do not want new policies, we have enough of those, and the government must just deliver.”
Former Scopa chairperson and African People’s Convention leader Themba Godi said his political party will keep a keen eye on the address.
“The state of the nation address cannot be the usual endless list of promises. Looking at what the country is going through with electricity blackouts, rising unemployment, grinding poverty, etc the African People’s Convention would expect a president with a conscience to change course from policies that have brought us to this state,” Godi said.
The DA said it is “not blind to the fact that” the Ramaphosa-led ANC has failed to make any meaningful change in the lives of South Africans.
“However, we expect the president to make key announcements of how his government intends to tackle crime and endemic corruption, find sustainable solutions to the energy crisis and the ballooning cost of living and jobs blood bath. The time for empty promises is over,” said Siviwe Gwarube, the party’s chief whip.
The Centre for Development and Enterprise, an independent think-tank, said it has lost hope that Ramaphosa will lead the country out of the woods because of his indecisiveness.
“President Ramaphosa presented himself as a reformer and there were many people desperate to believe this. They were ready to separate the man from the party of which he has been a leader and a member for over three decades. They believed in the possibility that the chairman of the ANC deployment committee at the height of the state capture would do things differently and abandon long-standing views and practices,” said executive director of CDE Ann Bernstein, pointing out that it is time for citizens to liberate themselves.
Tlou Seopa, the campaign manager for social mobilisation group Amandla.mobi, said it wanted Ramaphosa to raise the Social Relief of Distress Grant from R350 to R1 417 a month.
“They will likely see the repercussions of inaction, especially with the upcoming 2024 elections. We will only stop mobilising once a basic income grant is in place,” Seopa said.
ActionSA president Herman Mashaba stated Ramaphosa has to first address the Phala Phala matter before making “empty promises” again.
“We cannot have a tainted president telling us the same story that is not yielding any results to take the country forward. We need to deal with these draconian laws that are not working for our people. However, he must start addressing Phala Phala saga first as he needs to explain why he couldn’t use the country’s banking systems to keep his money rather than hiding it under sofas,” said Mashaba.
SACP spokesperson Alex Mashilo said it also expected Ramaphosa to come up with plans to deal with loadshedding and eradicate unemployment, inequality and poverty.
“There are four critical challenges the Sona needs to address with a compelling case for South Africans to accept. Steps to end loadshedding as a matter of urgency, drive large-scale employment creation to bring down unemployment within a reasonable period, tackle poverty through a radical poverty eradication strategy, systematically eliminate inequality. In addition, the Sona must deal with crime and corruption convincingly,” said Mashilo.
Another issue that will weigh heavily on Ramaphosa is the so-called comprehensive social compact that he promised will be delivered within 100 after announcing it during last year’s Sona. There was much dilly-dallying on the matter such that former president Thabo Mbeki chided Ramaphosa on the delays.
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