Some political parties represented in Parliament have expressed mixed reactions about the last State of the Nation Address (SONA) delivered by President Cyril Ramaphosa on Thursday night.
This year’s SONA was the last for the 6th parliamentary administration before the elections to be held this year.
Cosatu parliamentary co-ordinator, Matthew Parks says the commitments made by the President, including the extension of the SRD grant, are welcomed. He says however the lack of detail on timeframes is concerning.
Parks says the government needs to do more to drive infrastructure programmes to stimulate economic growth in the country. He says the overall statistics facing the working-class community remain frightening.
“A commitment to build upon the success of the Presidential Employment Program, which we think needs to be expanded to include at least 2 million unemployed youth. We do acknowledge there’s real progress around the electricity front, Eskom debt relief package, reducing load shedding from 12 hours to two hours a day and less.
“We need to maintain that and build upon that. We here, there is progress around Transnet, but we need to see more action infrastructure. We, you know, appreciate the progress in investing in water dams, but much more needs to be done with regards to the overall infrastructure program, which has been frozen since September last year, and really needs to be unlocked to grow the economy,” Parks explains.
Unemployment
The Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) has described the content of the speech by Ramaphosa as not inspiring. Party leader Velenkosini Hlabisa says, “You know he spoke of the issue of many students graduating passing matric. Yes, we agree we received big numbers. But the unfortunate part over the thirty years the pass rate, in terms of pass marks, has been lower to 30%, which is not cool because if you look at university drop-outs the number is very high. He spoke of the NSFAS producing many students. But unfortunately, thousands of graduates are sitting at home unemployed.”
But the African National Congress (ANC) says it welcomes the 2024 SONA. The ANC’s Chief Whip in parliament, Pemmy Majodina, says the party’s caucus will monitor the implementation of the promises made in the speech.
“We are going to also hold the president accountable though that SONA. We are going to analyse it to say what is an annual plan so that we are able to say after five years this is what you have said and this is what you have achieved.”
Election campaign
Freedom Front Plus (FF Plus) leader Pieter Groenewald has accused Ramaphosa of delivering an election campaign for his party.
“It is quite clear and I have predicted that he was going to misuse the State of the Nation Address to actually have an election campaign to convince the people how the ANC government was over the last thirty years. It is totally unacceptable and I do believe what people experience in reality will ensure that they also realise that it is time for a change in government.”
Scourge of crime
African Christian Democratic Party (ACDP) leader Kenneth Meshoe has complained that Ramaphosa had failed to address how the government plans to deal with the scourge of crime in the country.
“Many South Africans have acknowledged that are not safe in this country and what is happening is that even where there are enough street lights. Now the street lights are dark and he is aware of that. Nothing is being done and as long as people have lights at night is going to be very difficult how do they accept that? So the issue of how he deals with crime, he did not say enough about that and I think he was not honest.”
Democratic Alliance (DA) leader John Steenhuisen claims Ramaphosa has failed to give enough answers on how the government will end load shedding in the country.
“The best thing he could announce is breaking the state monopoly on energy. It will open up a whole new green field in industry. It will open entrepreneurs and innovators. Nuclear is all good and well. It’s a 15 to 20-year project in the making. It’s not gonna help our situation right now. We have power in our grid in our factories and in our homes to create jobs and grow the economy. We cannot attract investment without the economy. So what we need to do is to break up the market and to stop Eskom’s monopoly and allow private sector investment to come in. This is how countries around the world have dealt with similar problems by opening up and letting other role players and break the state monopoly.”
NHI
President Ramaphosa says the National Health Insurance (NHI) will be implemented incrementally. Parliament passed the NHI bill in December last year. The President is however yet to sign the bill into law.
He says the NHI will improve access to quality healthcare.
“While our health system has had a great impact on people’s lives, we are working to improve both the quality of healthcare and equality of access. The National Health Insurance will provide free health care at the point of care for all South Africans, whether in public or private health facilities. We plan to incrementally implement the NHI, dealing with issues like health system financing, the health workforce, medical products, vaccines and technologies, and health information systems.”
