February 10th, 2022 marks one of the most important dates on the South African calendar as President Cyril Ramaphosa takes on the daunting task of delivering the State of the Nation Address on Thursday evening at the City Hall in Cape Town for the very first time.
A January fire saw gutted the parliamentary building gutted, forcing the SONA to be moved out of the precinct for the first time in South African history. The fire has left many questions unanswered and heightens security concerns, especially since the unrest that dogged the country in July last year.
On the backdrop of these incidents, expectations are high for the President as the pandemic rages on, but more so, since corruption levels have been left unrestricted and the SIU recommendations into the R14 billion irregular PPE spending has yet to be acted on.
Ramaphosa is also being urged to address the State Capture reports that have been received so far as well as many of the economic downfalls that currently plague South Africa’s economy.
Trade union Cosatu says that government needs to acknowledge the deepening socio-economic crisis comes from the misguided macroeconomic policy framework that has been implemented over the years.
Cosatu’s Parliamentary Coordinator Matthew Parks says the country has never been in a worse economic state.
“This is the deepest economic recession in living memory, unemployment is at an all-time high of 46%, too many people have lost their jobs in the past two years, millions have lost wages, municipalities are collapsing and we have a problem of load shedding that hinders the economy. Prasa and Transnet disintegrating; so for us we really want to see what’s going to be done to turn this ship around,” said Parks.
He says time is of the essence and certainly not on our side. Parks says that while many people want to see reform, they do not expect miracles but rather want to see the disposition of the government change and accountability taken.
He says there are key interventions and steps that need to be taken to repair the state “bleeded by corruption”.
“We need to rival affordable electricity, and push Eskom to ramp up matters to improve capacity, and continue cleaning it up and combat corruption. We need to fix Transnet and Prasa, Transnet is integral to getting our agriculture, our mining and manufactured goods to the market which is critical to the economy,” explained Parks.
Parks says they would like to also see the Presidential programme being doubled to create a minimum of two million jobs throughout the country to assist the youth in finding employment. Parks said the grant being offered for Covid-19 relief should be extended as well.
“It has helped 10 million people put food on the table, its not a huge amount of money but its something,” said Parks.
Ideally, he sees the youth being employed by or through the government and then undergoing skills training in order to sustain a livelihood.
Ramaphosa has been described as a weak leader by many analysts, for not being able to take his peers to task for crimes of corruption which are ideally against the people of South Africa.
The address will allow the President the opportunity to table some of the challenges that have weighed down his Presidency from the onset.
By Naadiya Adams
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