President Cyril Ramaphosa’s State of the Nation Address (Sona) was subjected to a debate by Members of Parliament in a joint sitting of the National Assembly and the National Council Province. As per the usual parliamentary practice, the debate was opened by the majority party with its Chief Whip Ms Pemmy Majodina as the first speaker.
She welcomed the address and commended the President for outlining commitments to taking decisive action to address challenges facing the nation through placing the people’s interests in the centre of the process of change. Ms Majodina also labelled as falsehoods criticism that the President has not done anything for the past four years, and has been making empty promises.
“We acknowledge that the President or the national government alone cannot solve the myriad of challenges that are facing our country. The ANC is not in denial about the state of the provision of basic services and infrastructure such as water, human settlement, transport, electricity and bad roads. We need investment in new infrastructure projects and funding in maintenance,” she said.
The ANC Chief Whip said the critics of the national state of disaster missed the most important element of the intervention, which was the strong central coordination and decisive action needed to deal with the national crisis of energy.
The leader of the official opposition, the Democratic Alliance’s Mr John Steenhuisen, said the Ramaphosa presidency is a farce. “The ‘New Dawn’ is a false dawn. Ramaphoria was a delusion. Your supposed commitment to reform was hollow,” said Mr Steenhuisen. He went on to blame the President for skyrocketing unemployment that has gone from 36% to 43% since Mr Ramaphosa became President in 2018. Murders have increased by 20% over the same period, with 70 people murdered in the country every day.
“And, as we all know, rolling power blackouts have become a permanent feature of life in the Ramaphosa era. The President is too weak, too indecisive and too cowardly to take on the cadres, the compromised and the vested interests in the political party he leads,” he said.
In response to President Ramaphosa’s announcement of a national state of disaster to respond to the electricity crisis, Mr Steenhuisen accused the President of giving sweeping powers to the same Minister who abused the people of this country during Covid, instead of getting the state out of the way of private electricity generation.
“Instead of deregulating and unleashing private sector electricity generation, he centralised even more power in his super-presidency. Instead of removing the incompetent ministers of Energy and Public Enterprises who block reform, he added yet another Ministry to his bloated Cabinet.
“By once again expanding rather than shrinking the role of the state, the President has all but guaranteed that load-shedding and all the other terrible crises we face will only get worse,” Mr Steenhuisen said.
Mr Julius Malema, the leader of the Economic Freedom Fighters, said the country is in the middle of a man-made crisis. He also raised a concern about the high rate of unemployment in which more than 12 million capable South Africans are looking for jobs, including those who cannot find jobs anywhere because there are no meaningful programmes to create jobs for young people.
“Unemployment in South Africa is too high. The South African Post Office has announced that it will be worsening the crisis of unemployment through retrenchment of more than 6 000 workers,” he said.
Mr Malema said the fact that South Africa has close to 20 million people who are dependent on social grants should not be celebrated, particularly when viewed from the fact that these social grants do not eliminate poverty. He also argued that the form of social assistance provided by government since 1994 has not been impactful in reducing poverty because the government is incapable of creating jobs and taking people out of poverty.
Mr Pieter Groenewald of the Freedom Front Plus spoke out again against government policies of Black economic empowerment (BEE) and affirmative action, which it believes were the cause of the country’s crisis including the problems at Eskom. “BEE and affirmative action are the main reasons for the problems at Eskom. Let us get rid of these policies because they are just a smokescreen for corruption,” he said.
He also proposed the reinstatement of the Scorpions (the Directorate of Special Operations) to respond to the high crime rate and especially transnational crimes.
The Chief Whip of Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP), Mr Narend Singh, said his party finds it difficult to believe new promises by the President when old promises have not been met. “South Africa cannot survive with a government that makes promises and reneges on its own promises. The country wants solutions, honesty, fairness and justice; a government that is capable and willing to do its job,” he said.
Mr Singh said the appointment of a Minister of Electricity was another way of saying the ministers of Energy and Public Enterprises have failed.
United Democratic Movement (UDM) leader Mr Bantu Holomisa raised concern about the delays in processing the State Capture Commission report. “The Zondo Commission report has been gathering dust here in Parliament. We would prefer that the leader of government must monitor the process and the implementation of the commission’s findings.
“He should also advise as to how the other serious evidence slipped through the commission’s processes and how the veracity of that evidence can be tested,” he said.
Mr Holomisa also warned that it would be a mistake to wait for the current Speaker to drive the debate, alleging that she is conflicted. “The Bosasa offshoot company, Dyambu Holdings, which she was part of received millions and millions of rands in tenders from the state. Bosasa as we all know was cited at the Zondo commission,” Mr Holomisa said.
Mr Mzwanele Nyhontso of the Pan African Congress said the electricity crisis was not a natural disaster but a result of a series of blunders and poor planning. He feels by declaring a national state of disaster the county risks going back to what happened during Covid-19 where government worked without oversight, undermined the process of good governance, and embarked on reckless spending and unilateral decisions.
Mr Vuyo Zungula of the African Transformation Movement accused President Ramaphosa of failing to lead South Africa to prosperity and that everything has moved from bad to worse under this presidency. “The investment summits, advisory commissions are not working. You consolidated ministries in the Presidency, but there is no result. We need engineers to fix Eskom, not another ministry,” said Mr Zungula.
Mr Brett Herron of the Good Party said: “South Africa requires a miracle to eradicate unemployment. We cannot maintain such high numbers of unemployment without mitigating programmes to ensure the people do not starve. We need a basic income grant. Let us reduce the number of departments and prioritise a basic income grant.”
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