Many astute commentators will analyse the content of the State of the Nation Address (SONA) in the next few days. The event, however, reflects how much the African National Congress (ANC) patronises ordinary South Africans and how little it respects them. But more than that it shows that ‘the emperor has no clothes’.
President Cyril Ramaphosa gave the SONA in 2018, instead of Jacob Zuma, and did so again in February 2019. Now that he has been formally elected president, he chose to deliver another SONA address on 20 June 2019. We didn’t need another SONA – it didn’t offer enough to justify paying for one.
The presidency has been bragging that the SONA only cost R2 million, 47% of the budgeted SONA of 2018. Why did we have to pay this at all? The pomp and ceremony seems an unnecessary and indulgent event in the face of the dire state of the economy. If communication was essential, surely a television address would have sufficed? Ramaphosa didn’t need a SONA to communicate what is wrong, what needs to be done and how we’re going to pay for it.
We had the usual display of eye-popping fashion – bright, bold, tasteless, blowsy and expensive. Sober work gear would have been much more appropriate in the circumstances. Some will no doubt say that it’s an entertaining diversion for a weary populace. People don’t want razz-a-ma-tazz. They don’t want diversions. They don’t want talk. They only want action, meaningful action.
But Ramaphosa seems partial to the “bread and circuses” style of governance. Every speech he makes is, essentially, a reworking of previous speeches. He speaks in homilies; he never acknowledges that we’re in the mess we’re in because of the ANC; he implores us ‘to work together’ or be ‘responsible for’ turning things around even though we are not responsible for this mess; he never admits that the money that the ANC has stolen or mismanaged comes from our taxes.
It’s not as if an apology could be detrimental to the ANC or alter our fortunes by ridding us of the ANC administration. In fact, the ANC would have little to lose by apologising to us and undertaking to do whatever it takes (whether it suits their ideology or not) to turn things around. We might trust them more if they just fessed up. Ramaphosa could then just send out a press release referring us to the genuinely most pressing issues and tell us what he will actually do to rectify them. He mustn’t just tell us that they ‘have ‘a plan’.
Things are often alluded to in the SONA, but not actually said. We’re told that we will be bailing out Eskom (again!) For R230 billion, but nothing about what is actually going to be done with Eskom. We have a right to know.
Ramaphosa (like most of his colleagues) always commences a speech by reinforcing black South Africans’ victimhood as a result of apartheid. This SONA took it to a whole new level and thereby actually diminished the disgrace that was apartheid. ‘More than a century after that grave injustice [the 1913 Land Act], we are called upon to forge a South Africa where no person will be slave or pariah, only free and equal and respected.”
To uttering these sentiments 25 years into democracy, when there isn’t a snowball’s hope in hell that this will happen again, is to divert attention from the fact that for the first 15 years we made considerable progress, but once the ANC acquiesced to the kleptocracy of Jacob Zuma that progress turned around. Blaming apartheid has become the last refuge of the ANC scoundrel.
Ramaphosa said that the government will focus on seven priorities:
- Economic transformation and job creation;
- Education, skills and health;
- Consolidating the social wage through reliable and quality basic services;
- Spatial integration, human settlements and local government;
- Social cohesion and safe communities;
- A capable, ethical and developmental state; and
- A better Africa and World
While a successful South Africa could contribute to making ‘Africa and the world better’, for a virtually bankrupt country to declare it as a ‘priority’ is grandiose and meaningless. It raises questions about Ramaphosa’s good sense. None of our money should go to bettering Africa and/or the world. South Africa’s GDP comprises a mere 0,7% of the world’s GDP. If we improve, we can contribute. If we don’t, we’ll become more and more globally irrelevant.
As for the other six priorities, they comprise everything that the government has to do anyway, so they can’t all be priorities.
Ramaphosa’s credibility is dented by exclaiming that within the next decade no person in South Africa will go hungry. It’s akin to his addressing the angry residents of Alexandra and telling them the government will build one million houses. It’s just dishonest.
‘In the next five years, we will accelerate the provision of well-located housing and land to poor South Africans.’ Nothing is said about whether people will actually own said provided land.
‘We must attend to the capacity of our hospitals and clinics…We are far advanced in revising the NHI [National Health Insurance] detailed plan of implementation, including accelerating quality of care initiatives in public facilities, building human resource capacity, establishment of the NHI Fund structure, and costing the administration of the NHI Fund.’ What Ramaphosa does not explain is that the unaffordable and unworkable NHI will do nothing to improve hospital infrastructure, increase the numbers of doctors and nurses, and root out the seemingly endemic incompetence and negligence.
‘We have moved the coordination of disability initiatives to the centre of government, in the Presidency.’ No one would disagree with improving the lives and opportunities of the disabled, but it should be capable of being managed by the relevant department. Moving it into the presidency only signals Ramaphosa’s virtue; it doesn’t actually mean anything will change.
‘Within the next month, the Minister of Communications will issue the policy direction to ICASA to commence the spectrum licensing process.
This process will include measures to promote competition, transformation, inclusive growth of the sector and universal access.’ Every communications minister, for 25 years, has undertaken and failed to do this, even though it is key to growing the economy.
Ramaphosa says that the government is working to institutionalise the Infrastructure Fund of R100 billion, which will be managed by the Development Bank of Southern Africa, with the Department of Public Works playing an oversight role. He then slips in ‘We have been doing this in consultation with private investors, such as pension funds, who are enthusiastic about participating in the Infrastructure fund.’ No betting that this is the SONA’s hint at the ANC’s intention to legislate for prescribed assets.
The obligations that will be imposed on government to ‘Buy Local’ virtually guarantee that we will spend more for most products than we do now. Generally South African products are more expensive than their imported versions. It also offers more scope for tenderpreneurship.
Ramaphosa reaffirmed the constitutional mandate of the South African Reserve Bank (SARB) to protect the value of our currency, in the interests of balanced and sustainable growth. SARB must ‘pursue independently, without fear, favour or prejudice.’ Then comes the ANC’s kicker: the Constitution requires that regular consultation take place between SARB and the Minister of Finance to promote macroeconomic coordination, ‘all in the interests of employment creation and economic growth’. Tito Mboweni is not slated to remain in the cabinet for long and his deputy is a dedicated member of the SA Communist Party. Is SARB’s mandate really likely to remain intact?
In answer to imaging a country ‘where bullet trains pass’ from Johannesburg to Musina, one wag said you only have to take a train from Simonstown to Cape Town to experience a ‘bullet’ train now.
Despite its over 6000 words or one hour and 40 minutes, nothing about this speech will have inspired our faith in Ramaphosa or the ANC.
Dream on!
Sara Gon is the Head of Strategic Engagement and content editor at the IRR.
The views of the writer are not necessarily the views of the IRR.
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