The African National Congress (ANC) Chief Whip, Pemmy Majodina, has refuted opposition parties’ claims that the State of the Nation Address (SONA) that President Cyril Ramaphosa delivered when he opened the sixth Parliament last week, was a mere dream which was short on tangible solutions on growing the economy.
She was speaking in Parliament where the 14 represented political parties are engaged in a robust debate on the SONA.
Most opposition parties expressed disappointment with his speech and accused him of presenting a dream without concrete plans, while the ANC said ministers would provide the details.
“There is no revolution without a dream. Any revolution without a dream is a dead dream. And therefore the President has outlined more than 21 practical concrete plans on how to take South Africa forward. Therefore you may revisit your State of the Nation documents. The President was very specific on how to grow the economy,” says Majodina.
Meanwhile, Democratic Alliance (DA) leader, Mmusi Maimane, has called on government to come up with bold decisions to grow the economy and address escalating unemployment, particularly among the youth.
He spoke after Majodina.
“Inevitably, we have to make hard decisions. It can’t be business as usual. We have to make the tough choices about standing up to unions and alliance partners. We have to actually upset the network of patronage that has kept so many of the cadres in jobs for far too long despite what they deliver. We have to rethink our policies that haven’t worked in the last decade and ultimately we have to step out of our mindset and ideology to belongs to a different era. None of this is easy, these are tough decisions.”
Ramaphosa will reply to the debate on Wednesday.
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