President Cyril Ramaphosa appeared before a jointing sitting of Parliament yesterday to present the 2023 State of the Nation Address (SONA), a year after Covid-19 regulations were lifted. For the first time in three years, all Members of Parliament were present in person in Cape Town’s City Hall for the event.
Notwithstanding the devastating effects of the Covid-19 pandemic, President Ramaphosa informed his listeners that the South African economy is larger now than it was before the pandemic. Between the third quarters of 2021 and 2022, around one and a half million new jobs were created.
President Ramaphosa pointed out that over the course of 2022, a firm foundation was laid based on the commitments the government made in the 2022 State of the Nation Address to foster faster growth through an investment drive, economic reforms, public employment programmes and an expanding infrastructure programme.
However, a growing economy must also be an inclusive one, he noted. To this end, the inaugural Black Industrialists Conference in July last year showed the successes of black South Africans in producing food, car parts, furniture, clothing, steel, chemicals and mining products. All of these industries created many thousands of jobs and added to South Africa’s gross domestic product.
Some 1 000 black industrialists participate in the black industrialists’ programme. As an example of the technological prowess of these industrialists, one of the award winners at the conference was Astrofica Technologies, a company co-founded by a black woman, Jessie Ndaba, which provides data solutions for the operation of satellites.
“We have made progress in the last year in achieving greater levels of worker ownership in the economy. There are now more than 400 000 workers who own shares in the firms they work for,” the President said during his address to the joint sitting.
“Last year, we launched the bounce-back loan scheme administered by banks and other financial institutions, and guaranteed by government, for companies that need finance to recover from the effects of the pandemic.”
The Department of Small Business Development will work with National Treasury on how the scheme can be strengthened to assist small and medium enterprises and businesses in the informal sector.
To address the challenge of youth unemployment, the Employment Tax Incentive has been expanded to encourage businesses to hire young people in large numbers.
Mava Lukani
10 February 2023
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