Various political parties in Parliament say they would have wanted more information about the country’s COVID-19 vaccination plan during President Cyril Ramaphosa’s State of the Nation Address.

Ramaphosa delivered his fifth SONA during a very subdued event on Thursday evening. Only 50 people were allowed inside the National Assembly, in an effort to comply with COVID-19 regulations.

President Cyril Ramaphosa delivers the State Of the Nation Address:

All other MPs and guests followed proceedings via virtual platforms.

African Christian Democratic Party leader Reverend Kenneth Meshoe says the party expected an apology from President Ramaphosa for the setback in the coronavirus vaccination programme.

Meshoe  says although the President provides good ideas, he constantly fails to ensure implementation of his plans.

“The President has very good ideas but implementation is always the problem. We also expected him to apologize for bringing in a million vaccines that cannot be used because they did not check when the expiry date would be relevant for the variant we have in SA. Every year he says they will deal with corruption. He mentioned crime again, what are they going to this year that they didn’t do last year. We are disappointed that he has stated the facts and the problems that we know about but how he’s going to deal with them he didn’t tell us.
Freedom Front Plus leader, Pieter Groenewald, says his party bemoans the fact that President Ramaphosa has not introduced any new plans to jack up the economy.
Groenewald says the SONA delivered nothing new and repeated many of the already announced plans by government.
“He referred to rebuilding the economy, said nothing new. spoke about local production in 2019 he already wore the suit, still same stories, we don’t see the results.”
Inkatha Freedom Party National Spokesperson Mkhuleko Hlengwa says the President’s address was repetitive.
“It felt like we were in SONA 2020, SONA 2019 we heard these things before. It sounded like a pitch for a President who was gunning for re-election but was actually in government. Yes obviously on the issues of the vaccine he has provided much-needed clarity.”
The Democratic Alliance has identified a number of flaws in Ramaphosa’s address, saying the President failed to provide practical solutions to the challenges that the country faces.
Although the party welcomed the government’s latest move on the coronavirus vaccine, its leader John Steenhuisen says there was nothing new or progressive in Ramaphosa’s address especially with regards to state-owned entities and socio-economic challenges.
He says, “There was nothing new tonight about concrete reforms to rebuild our economy. A complete failure to deal with Eskom this evening in any comprehensive way. Hanging onto state control of the entity, no control about the other SOE’s didn’t mention SAA once. Nothing new on job creation. What we actually need is a blaze to get rid of this government and bring a new government that’s gonna be serious about growth, jobs acceleration and inclusivity.

SONA 2021 | Political parties react to President Ramaphosa’s address: