In his sixth State of the Nation Address (SONA), President Cyril Ramaphosa threw the nation’s 10 million jobless and poor people a lifeline of R350 per person, monthly, for the next year to combat the unemployment crisis, amidst renewed calls by non-government organisations and lobby groups for a state-subsidised grant of at least R1 500 monthly to buffer the rampant unemployment and poverty among citizens aged 18 to 59.
Looking much calmer and confident, and a sporting a full “Made in South Africa” outfit for the glamorous ceremony at the historic City Hall built in the colonial era in 1809, the President delivered a smorgasbord of opportunities and new hope as he sketched out the reality check to the country.
He reflected on how a country that was progressing well along the democratic highway until internal and external elements began looting the State’s coffer culminating in the July insurrection and looting spree and carnage that claimed 350 lives – not excluding the established township of Phoenix emerging as a racial flash-point – and business and the economy lost R50 billion during the week-long mayhem.
President Ramaphosa highlighted how the Covid-19 pandemic turned the coronavirus into one of the country’s biggest crises – claiming up to 95 000 lives in its two-year reign – and millions were left jobless, and millions more suffered pay cuts during the work-at-home protocol and the tight lockdowns to prevent SA from becoming one of the red-flagged zones of the region – including bans and curbs on mass gatherings.
However, after the Cabinet renewed the monthly Covid-19 lockdown last week, President Ramaphosa raised hopes of ending the State of Emergency health pandemic by mid-March.
For the millions of South Africans who have battled long queues in the sweltering sun at post offices countrywide for the cash hand-out, the President announced that the Social Relief of Distress Grant would be handed out until March 2023.
President Ramaphosa empathised with the poorest of the poor, saying the pandemic and unemployment have devastated the livelihoods of millions, describing the government grant as a ‘critical buffer’ to millions of South Africans hit by the continuing pandemic.
He made a point of sharing how one of the recipients in Soweto had saved his monthly stipend of R350 and opened an ice-cream business that now employs four people.
His admission – two decades later since his ruling party entered democratic politics in 1994 on the bold “A Better Life for All’’ election slogan – that government could not create jobs and he put the jobs-crisis ball in the court of the private sector, thrilling DA Leader, John Steenhuisen, who said the policy shift read like the DA’s playbook policy that the private sector created jobs – and not government – but this shift by the President irritated EFF Leader, Julius Malema, who denounced it as President Ramaphosa passing a motion of no-confidence in himself and the ANC that always promised jobs, jobs, jobs at every election campaign.
Other critics wrote off his economic plans and strategy as a ‘neo-liberal’ speech out of a DA manifesto.
Across the country, millions of citizens saw hope and opportunities in his SONA – some saying President Ramaphosa has calmed the waters after a turbulent two years of Covid-19, social unrest, insurrection-related looting and carnage and the goings-on at the Commission of Inquiry into State Capture, the controversial roles of the state-owned enterprises – racketeering at the national carrier, SAA, SA Express, and not excluding Transnet – culminating in the chaotic conduct at the recent Judicial Services Commission’s interviewing of the next chief justice.
On a monthly social grant for under-60s – particularly millions of young university and college-educated graduates, the Black Sash and lobbyist Dominic Brown have called on government to legislate grants of up to R1 500 for the poor and jobless people, with many NGOs saying the SA Revenue Services income streams have improved and this multi-million Rand budget could see the light of the day in the finance minister’s Budget Day later this year.
Praise and criticism of the President’s SONA delivery has been met with mixed reaction, but the nuts and bolts of every word scripted by President Ramaphosa and his presidential aides came under the microscope in the SONA debate that got underway on Monday afternoon until Wednesday, ending after 8pm each day – with the EFF and other opposition voices leading the charge of the light brigade with fireworks thrown into the verbal word power struggle this week.
President Ramaphosa will respond to his critics and praise-singers among the MPs during the final day of the mid-week parliamentary session at the City Hall in Cape Town.
An under-siege Ramaphosa has now rallied foot soldiers, the private sector and all South Africans to combat poverty, inequality and the jobs bloodbath.
President Ramaphosa’s Tuma Mina SONA 6 aims to seriously collar SA’s socio-economic woes. Let’s start with the recruitment of 50 000 youth in 2023 for a skills-development and jobs empowerment programme; and build bridges for rural schoolchildren dicing with death across raging rivers.
