SONA 2024 ANALYSIS
With an eye on the polls, Ramaphosa talks up government achievements and makes an array of promises
The worst of the rolling blackouts were behind South Africa following regulatory reforms, and more would be done to tackle unemployment, crime and State Capture, President Cyril Ramaphosa said in his State of the Nation Address, which was more like an election speech.
Like never before, President Cyril Ramaphosa switched languages in the State of the Nation Address (Sona) to speak to voters in their language during the live broadcast on Thursday evening.
That tactic and the telling of the story of the governing ANC’s successes since the 1994 democratic transition through democracy’s child, Tintswalo, were front and centre of the Sona in a speech that ran to 6,769 words.
Recalling Nelson Mandela’s 1994 vote in Inanda, KwaZulu-Natal, Ramaphosa touched on 30 years of democracy, the Constitution and societal aspiration.
“It is this dream, of a free and united people, that is woven into our democratic Constitution.
“It is this Constitution that has guided our collective efforts over the last three decades to fundamentally change our country for the better, and it must stand at the centre of the work we do now to build a better life for all.”
The benefits for Tintswalo include free healthcare, no-fee schools with feeding schemes that ensure nutrition for nine million learners, social grants paid monthly to 26 million South Africans, free tertiary education, employment equity and black economic empowerment.
Ramaphosa announced the extension of the R350 Social Relief of Distress grant that dates back to the Covid-19 lockdown, but did not give a date. The grant had already been extended to March 2025.
“We have seen the benefits of this grant and will extend it and improve it as the next step towards income support for the unemployed,” Ramaphosa said. “They are an investment in the future.”
National Health Insurance
Signalling his intention to implement the National Health Insurance — organised business and others recently asked that the controversial Bill be referred back to Parliament — Ramaphosa said his administration would “incrementally implement the NHI” to deal with financing and more.
“I am going through the Bill,” said Ramaphosa, going off script to enthusiastic support from the ANC benches. “I am looking for a pen.”
This was his cue to tack into his five-year administration and the challenges it faced, from Covid-19 to increased oil and gas prices due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
“The last five years has been a time of recovery, rebuilding and renewal. We have had to revitalise our economy after more than a decade of poor economic performance. We have had to rebuild our public institutions after the era of State Capture.”
Read more in Daily Maverick: President Ramaphosa’s 2024 State of the Nation Address
According to Ramaphosa, that’s exactly what his administration has done. Hospitals are being built and houses provided for the poor. Life expectations have rapidly increased and the number of those who know their HIV status has increased while new infections decline. The Presidential Employment Stimulus and Youth Employment Programme have created more than 1.7 million work and livelihood opportunities and put more than one million assistants into classrooms.
“We have laid a foundation for growth through far-reaching economic reforms, an ambitious investment drive and an infrastructure programme that is starting to yield results.
“Companies continue to invest, thousands of hectares of farmland are being planted, new factories are being opened and production is being expanded.”
Electioneering
The opposition benches heckled and the ANC applauded the electioneering Sona, in what signalled divisions ahead of the upcoming elections.
The decision to deliver a Sona account of achievements not only in the past five years but going back to 1994 comes against the back of polls showing the ANC losing its majority in the elections.
Just days before Sona, a baseline survey by Wits University Professor of Urban Governance David Everatt put the ANC at 42% of the vote, the DA at 19% and the EFF at 16%. An Ipsos poll this week put the ANC at 38.5%, the EFF at 18.6% and the DA at 17.3%.
However, since its January 8 Statement, the ANC has maintained it will secure an “overwhelming victory” and a “decisive victory” at the hustings.
Styling his administration as one of rebuilding, revitalising and renewal, Ramaphosa did not gloss over challenges, but contextualised them as work in progress.
Many of the stats presented during Thursday’s Sona came from the five-year review the Presidency released earlier in the week.
As with unemployment, Ramaphosa said, steps were being taken to rebuild institutions while ending corruption. Some 200 people were being prosecuted for State Capture and R14-billion in forfeiture orders had been effected.
Electricity
On the electricity front, regulatory reform would continue and 14,000km of new transmission lines built. Elsewhere, plans were under way to resolve the freight and rail logistics crisis.
“In the past year, we have come together with social partners to end load shedding, address the challenges in the logistics sector, tackle crime and corruption, and accelerate job creation.
“This is the South African way of building a social compact working together on tangible issues, and it will be the key to building a new society in the years to come,” Ramaphosa said.
“We have made significant progress on measures to grow the economy, create jobs and reduce poverty. While we have set in motion the process of renewal and reform, there is more work to be done to see these reforms through to the end. We will see through the work under way with our partners to end load shedding and revive the performance of our ports and rail network.”
Absent EFF
For the first time since 2015, a Sona unfolded without disruption. No small part of that was due to the absence of the EFF, which stayed away after EFF leader Julius Malema, his deputy Floyd Shivambu, secretary-general Marshall Dlamini and three others on Thursday morning lost their court bid to reverse their month-long suspension without salary. Following the court decision, the other 38 EFF MPs decided not to attend the Sona.
That snub was not unexpected, and on Saturday the EFF will launch its election manifesto at Durban’s Moses Mabhida Stadium.
Ramaphosa’s focus on South Africa’s 30 years of democracy was anticipated.
He called for South Africans to stand together against attempts to undermine the progressive realisation of everyone’s rights and against those who foment violence to divide South Africa and undermine democracy.
“As we move forward, let us remember that it is up to us — not anyone else — to determine the future of South Africa. We are not passive observers of our history. We are its authors. We are the builders of this country we call home.”
In ending the Sona of one hour and 40 minutes, Ramaphosa returned to Mandela.
“Like Madiba, we must keep moving, always forward, always onwards, towards the country of our dreams. Always believing that victory is certain,” said Ramaphosa. DM
Promises or lies?
The address was filled with inaccurately presented accomplishments, and populist promises (the NHI and extending the basic income grant):
Focused on the progress over 30 years, as almost nothing has been achieved, and generally things have been deteriorating, during the past five years.
Asserted that there is a real plan to end loadshedding, when there isn’t, and much of the renewable power added was from individuals and businesses.
Asserted that education and health care are improving, when they have been declining.
Asserted that effective action has been taken against state capture amd corruption, when there has been almost no meaningful action is taken, and cadre deployment is still being implemented and clung to by the ANC.
Asserted that criminal justice institutions have been strengthend, and criminal cases have been brought, but there have not been any convictions, and some current Ministers in Cabinet were named in the State Capture Report. Criminal justice institutions are still incredibly ineffective.
Asserted that the roll-out of basic services has been extremely successful, when the infrastructure is cumbling and services are declining.
Asserted that the focus of government is on youth, when the youth have been abandoned to poor quality education and horrendous unemployment, which there is no effective plan to address.
Asserted that progress has been made in addressing poverty and unemployment, when there has not been meaningful progress made.
Same shit, different SONA
What a steaming pile of horse manure. All the ANC has done is to destroy everything in South Africa. The whole Eskom fiasco makes them the laughing stock of the world and then they try and sell their achievements, which are both oversold and also dwarfed by their failures. Even a broken clock tells the correct time twice a day. It just proves, like in the rest of Africa, that a freedom fighting organisation doesn’t have the first clue about effectively running a country. USELESS and ROTTEN to the core.
But Tintswalo died in the pit toilet of one of the 23 000 schools that still have it.
She and her little brothers was caught in the cross fire in Mitchell’s plain.
She could not study for matric because of load shedding or she had to leave school long before.
Tintswalo has a degree, but no work, along with the 33,6% other graduandi.
But luckily, Tintswalo is a Mashatile.
Regardless of what other think, including opposition parties, I believe this was the best SONA I have listened to the last 15 odd years. No EFF interruptions, no cat calls. Whether the promises that CR made can be believed is another story. But I do sense this was a different CR I have seen in the last 4/5 years. It was a long speech, but can’t help but to feel there was a lot of sincerity this time. Whether his party can deliver is another story. But I also do not believe that parties like the EFF and DA can deliver. Always easy to criticise, not so easy to lead a country with all the races, faction, inherent problems at ground level. Personally, I only trust one person to lead this country out of the rubble, namely Songezo Zibe (Rise Mzansi)
Truly delusional
You start by saying it’s not easy to lead a country, but then champion someone with absolutely no track record and no clout. Zibi might be a thinker and a good communicator, but he has neither the experience nor the support to make any difference. There’s only one alternative with a track record of governing, and governing well – the DA. No, they’re not perfect and I know you have your personal issues with them, but if you are serious about turning this country around then there is only one choice this year. We know they can fulfill the role of government, their priorities are in the right place, they have a track record and institutional knowledge, and internal machinery that no other party can match. Literally no other party can do the job, and I’m tired of everyone throwing their vote around with all these new characters with no hope of actually changing anything. Get the DA in and hold them to account, as we do the ANC.
Achievements by the ANC government. !! Count the money stolen and NO culprit in jail for it. Looking for a pen to sign the NHI legislation into action. The pen will be sharper than the injections they are going to use in NHI.. They don’t have the money to employ the jobless doctors in the Government hospitals but they think they van run a NHI. Lastly if there are 18 % ( nearly one fifth of the voters ) that supports the EFF then you know that South Africa is on the verge of becoming a collapsed country without any hope
Hospitals are being built and houses provided for the poor. Life expectations have rapidly increased and the number of those who know their HIV status has increased while new infections decline. Really but just the other day in the news it was said that there are more then 700 unemployed doctors and that the government has no money to employ them. This in a country with a critical shortage of doctors.
This SONA ’24 was a real waste of time and constituted a huge bunch of unashamed lies !!!!!! Phew, we need a decent Government with a Conscience !!!!!!
What a joke! I had so much hope when that state capturing looter, whose name I will not speak, resigned, but Rampoccio has been an ever bigger disappointment. Quite sad to think where South Africa could have been if somebody with a backbone took the lead.