Lucas Ledwaba, Riyaz Patel & Charles Molele
One cannot help but feel that President Cyril Ramaphosa’s State on the Nation Address SONA was uninspiring, unconvincing and his wooliest yet.
There was scant detail in this speech and no commitment to deeply reflect on the state of the nation and how it is that we have arrived in these troubled, captured and unequal times.
Exhortation is a poor substitute for sober analysis, and an honest account of our failures.
Let’s start with the land question.
Ramaphosa began his address by reminding the nation that “We gather here at the start of the 6th Democratic Parliament, 106 years to the day after the Natives Land Act – one of the most devastating acts of dispossession, pain and humiliation – came into force.”
But the anticipation that something bigger, something meaningful was to follow, was quickly quashed. SONA failed the test on land issue with the same old rhetoric glaringly short on solutions.
Instead, Ramaphosa stuck to the old, tried and tested strategy that has become a trademark of the ANC government, regurgitating historic challenges that are known and acknowledged by all, peppering his speech with quotes from freedom fighters long dead.
Ramaphosa quoted the legendary Sol Platje who campaigned vigorously against the infamous act. “Awakening on Friday morning, June 20, 1913, the South African native found himself, not actually a slave, but a pariah in the land of his birth,” Ramaphosa said, quoting Platje’s famous words.
But South Africans waking the morning after SONA 2019 will be wondering whether the ANC indeed has the will to resolve this long standing issue that has for centuries been at the core of the struggle.
It has become a predictable strategy which blended with the emotions of the dispossessed by reminding them of the injustices of the past but offering nothing in terms of redress.
Reacting to this very issue after Ramaphosa’s address, EFF leader Julius Malema went as far to say that with vote in the bag, the land issue is now off the ANC agenda, and that “Black people have been made stupid” in that the ANC dangled the land carrot in the run up to the poll “and has now abandoned the issue.”
Ramaphosa rightly said that ‘our people suffered gravely and endured untold hardships as a result of the implementation of the Natives Land Act’ and ‘that the effect of that law are still present with us.’
Ramaphosa’s speech ushered in the ANC’s 6th administration of government since 1994, and 25 years, is, without doubt, ample time have formulated a strong strategy to deal with such a vexing issue.
All he could muster, in the form of something that resembles a solution, was to tell SA that “faster economic growth also requires accelerated land reform in rural and urban areas and a clear property rights regime.”
A fact well known!
He then went on to talk about the report submitted by the Presidential Advisory Panel on Land Reform and Agriculture, which will now be presented to Cabinet for consideration.
“The panel’s recommendations will inform the finalisation of a comprehensive, far-reaching and transformative land reform programme. In the immediate term, government will accelerate efforts to identify and release public land that is suitable for smart, urban settlements and for farming,” Ramaphosa said.
After a quarter of a century in power, and we still talking reports and
recommendations? This has been the ANC government’s game through the years and their indecisive response to this important and emotive issue is now coming to a head.
Of course, there is a delicate balancing act when addressing the land question… there are investor concerns on one hand and indigenous demands on the other.
But the burning embers of fire in Alexandra and the howls of
discontent among the unemployed, the landless, the homeless present a clear and present danger which can no longer be assuaged with reports and recommendations.
Crime to be halved over next decade – are you serious Mr President?
The daily scourge of violent crime plaguing our communities has reduced some parts of the country, like the Cape Flats, where a reported 1875 people have been killed in gang violence this year, into death zones.
Even police are not spared the violence of gangs who operate with impunity in a country where the rule of law is fast becoming, well a dream.
Incidents of violent responses by communities are becoming more common as fed up citizens take the law into their own hands hoping to quell the onslaught.
But listening to the president gives the impression that this is not the case. If communities plagued by rampant crime were hoping for a charged offensive from the president, then they must have been disappointed.
Ramaphosa told the nation to work together to ensure that violent crime is at least halved over the next decade.
Ask those terrified families and children on the Cape Flats and elsewhere, if they have 10 years to wait before walking the streets in relative peace and without fear of being snuffed out by a stray bullet from a gang war?
Do South Africans really have to wait a decade for the state to do what it is constitutionally required to do – protect its citizens?
Perhaps in Ramaphosa’s world of 24-hour armed protection 10 years is not too long a time to wait. But for a mother on the Cape Flats whose children walk to school in gang infested streets – every minute is crucial and potentially deadly.
What does Ramaphosa expect these communities to do, to wait 10 years so the ANC administration can at least reduce this scourge by half, not even by 90%?
Ramaphosa says the first step, yes the first step, “is to increase police visibility by employing more policewomen and men, and to create a more active role for citizens through effective community policing forums.’
Now, where have we heard this before? Oh yes, it’s been dished out not once, not twice, but at almost every talk shop where the issue of crime was addressed at in the past 25 years?
And of course, more fancy named ‘interventions,’ like “stepping up the
fight against drug syndicates through the implementation of the National Anti-Gang Strategy and the revised National Drug Master Plan.”
Mr President – 10 years is a long time to wait.
And criminals must be giddy in that they have at least ten years to continue with their vicious exploits, and then too, only half of them will be dealt stamped out.
Plans? What Plans?
Opposition parties said Ramaphosa’s priorities were long on promises but short on details.
Ramaphosa promised to eradicate poverty by 2030, grow the economy at a faster rate and create 2 million jobs for young people.
Ramaphosa said the private sector has committed to invest R840 billion in 43 projects over 19 sectors and creating 155,000 jobs over the next five years.
The government, he said, was in talks with businesses to remove policy hurdles and expedite the implementation of these projects.
However, opposition parties accused Ramaphosa of failing to give details on how these long-term goals, which have actually been bandied about before by various government officials, will be achieved.
Democratic Alliance leader Mmusi Maimane said Ramaphosa failed to outline a concrete plan on how to deal with the challenges facing South Africa such as unemployment, growing a stagnant economy, and how to tackle South Africa’s chaotic state-owned enterprises.
“His speech was all based on a dream but really no tangible plan on how he will get solve South Africa’s problems such as unemployment and problems facing Eskom. All we heard tonight was mere rhetoric from the president,” said Maimane.
Economic Freedom Fighters leader Julius Malema said Ramaphosa’s speech was “empty.”
“There’s no speech. It’s a dream. He told you he was day dreaming. Cyril wanted to be president for the past three decades but doesn’t know why he wanted to be president,” said Malema.
“He is dreaming about bullet trains and building smart cities. But this is no time to dream. We had dreams in the 1960s and 1970s; now is the time to implement. Someone must wake him up. He is fast asleep and detached from reality.
Ramaphosa did not utter a word about the troubled SOEs such as South African Airways, Prasa, Denel and Transnet despite the fact that these SOEs faced serious challenges such as maladministration, corruption and mismanagement.
SAA, which reported losses of more than R10 billion recently, plunged into a fresh crisis when Vuyani Jarana resigned CEO in May. Jarana accused the SAA’s Board of Directors of interference.
