President Cyril Ramaphosa delivered one of his most critical State of the Nation Addresses (Sona) since assuming office in 2018, says the author. President Cyril Ramaphosadelivered one of his most critical State of the Nation Addresses (Sona) since assuming office in 2018. While not every intervention or timeframe could be provided, it gave hope on many key matters affecting the working class and society.
The Congress of South African Trade Unions(Cosatu) as well as the other Federations constituting Organised Labour met with the President and members of Cabinet before Sonato raise workers’ key expectations and proposals. Such engagements with social partners should happen more often if we are to collectively resolve our many socio-economic crises. Many in society, particularly the working class, are naturally skeptical of politicians and speeches, and justifiably so.
It is important, however, to reflect on where we have come from, to remember the real damage unleashed during the decade of state capture and corruption and the substantial progress achieved to dismantle these networks of patronage and rebuild the state’s capacity. While we still have far to go and many areas of serious challenges remain; we should take comfort from and build upon the green shoots emerging under the African National Congress led government. Loadshedding has been overcome.
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We must now focus on reducing the increasingly unaffordable price of electricity for working and middle-class families and the economy. Whilst short solutions are being sought in negotiations with government and Eskom, we must expedite interventions to address Eskom’s financial losses, in particular moving all consumers to prepaid electricity as well as dealing with corruption, wasteful expenditure, acts of criminality and enabling Eskom to enter the renewable energy space. Transnet and Metro Rail’s free fall has been stopped and capacity is being restored.
These must be accelerated to help protect and create thousands of mining, manufacturing and agricultural jobs as well as to provide 10 million urban workers with fast, safe and cheap means of transport to work. The mining rights application system must be rolled out this year to inject investment and jobs into the economy’s backbone. South African Airways is once again flying, connecting key domestic destinations and boosting tourism and trade along international routes.
It is concerning however, that the Sona was silent on a package of interventions needed to rebuild other embattled State-Owned Enterprises, in particular Denel, the South African Broadcasting Corporation, Post Office and the Postbank. The South African Revenue Services’ remarkable turnaround is key to ensuring the state can collect the revenue needed to fund the public and municipal services that society and the economy depend upon. The announcement of interventions to tackle the flood of illegal goods is welcome as these products threaten local jobs and industries and deny the state taxes owed and in the case of tobacco and alcohol, the ability to curb these highly addictive products.
Sona’s focus on the need to win the war against crime and corruption, including the deployment of the South African National Defence Force to boost policing in crime hotspots is long overdue. Society should not be expected to tolerate our high levels of crime.
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