Phuti Mosomane
Political commentators and opposition parties believe that President Cyril Ramaphosa’s 2024 Sona was nothing more than a delivery of yet more promises, pretty much like William Shakespear’s Much Ado About Nothing – a comedy of love, deception and misunderstanding.
Political analyst Sanusha Naidoo said there was nothing “concrete” about the SONA 2024 speech by Ramaphosa and that was also not a surprise because it is the problem with a president that tries to engage but doesn’t really do it.
“It was a reflection on the kind of indecisive leadership that charecterised his government. He didn’t give us anything to think about. He could have announced an election date.
“The idea that he talks about millions taken out of poverty, the economy growing three times more – all means nothing if he is not measuring them against something. So the quantifying approach has no qualitative aspects,” Naidoo said.
Opposition political parties said Ramaphosa’s term in the last five years was a disaster.
ATM leader Vuyo Zungula said Ramaphosa’s 2024 Sona proved that he is far removed from the South African reality.
“We are not disappointed – Ramaphosa has done what we expected him to do; to lie to South Africans. It would have been much better if he was comparing the performance of the country under his leadership. He claims that he is the one fighting state capture while appointing the very same people implicated.”
Ramaphosa pretended as if all is well in the country and ignored the fact that the country is gravitating towards a failed state, Zungula said, adding that when Ramaphosa took over fuel price was on R16 and now it is R24. Unemployment was 29%, now it is 32%.
Pieter Groenewald, VF Plus leader said Ramaphosa made a lot of promises yet results are not there and should apologise to the people of South Africa.
“The economy has declined, unemployment is on the rise, the country has never ending electricity crisis, and now the water crisis is looming,” he said.
Action SA President Herman Mashaba said South Africans would be forgiven for thinking they live in a different country.
“The Sona was a political sleight of hand, where Ramaphosa appropriated the progress of the ruling party made under Presidents Mandela and Mbeki while distancing himself from its failures and corruption during President Zuma’s State Capture era,” he said.
Mashaba said South Africans struggling with unemployment, rampant crime, and continuous rolling blackouts know the truth that belies “this rhetoric.”
“The reality outside the Ramaverse is that the President’s superficial, low-impact interventions have done little to demonstrate real accountability for corruption, address rolling blackouts, improve educational outcomes, or grow our job-killing economy,” he said.
It is deeply ironic that the President commended the efforts to fight corruption while being applauded by the same ruling party that was complicit in State Capture, Mashaba said adding that this is an insult to South Africa’s collective memory.
“Ramaphosa was no innocent bystander during the Zuma administration, he was central to the Executive. While State Capture might look different now, grand corruption – seen once again during the COVID-19 pandemic – is still rife under Ramaphosa’s presidency.”
Similarly, despite Ramaphosa’s intervention in load shedding, including the appointment of a “lame-duck Minister of Electricity, rolling blackouts have only increased under his watch. South Africa now finds itself indefinitely on Stage 3 with no end in sight,” he said.
Mashaba said South Africa has experienced load shedding for more than a third of Ramaphosa’s stint as President. Since the start of 2021, South Africa had load shedding for almost 75% of days under Ramaphosa’s leadership.
“This is not a government that can solve this crisis. Despite the President’s posturing around a diverse and growing economy, outside the ‘Ramaverse’, 41.2% of South Africans — or almost 12 million citizens — find themselves without work. Claiming that a threefold increase in GDP in thirty years is something to be proud of, is embarrassing,” he said.
“We appointed capable people with integrity to head our law enforcement agencies, government departments, security services and state companies, often through an independent and transparent process,” he said.
However, the South African Communist Party said it welcomed the commendable progress that is benefiting millions of people as a result of the hard-won April 1994 democratic breakthrough.
“This includes human rights, homes built and allocated for free and the massive rollouts of household electrification, water provision, education at all levels, roads infrastructure development, especially in rural areas and townships that were previously neglected, among others.
“However, numerous areas of commendable progress since April 1994 are facing a real threat of erosion and some have been rolled back as a result of multiple crises,” Spokesperson Dr. Alex Mashilo said.
Delivering the 6th Administration’s last Sona, Ramaphosa said his government has introduced laws and undertaken programmes to enable black South Africans and women to advance in the workplace, to become owners and managers, to acquire land and build up assets.
“One of the overriding challenges this administration had to deal with when it took office was state capture and corruption.
“Our first priority was to put a decisive stop to state capture, to dismantle the criminal networks within the state and to ensure that perpetrators faced justice,” he said.
Ramaphosa painted a picture of state institutions that are now “restored” and an economy that is “rebuild”.
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