Dear Editor
The 2024 State of the Nation Address (SONA) will be the last delivered by an African National Congress (ANC) President with its own majority in the National Assembly. As South Africa eagerly approaches its 7th General Elections later this year, it will remember the five-year term from which it has emerged under President Cyril Ramaphosa and the ANC – a period in which South Africa has regressed, across every single metric, into a state of decay and decline that has only exacerbated inequality, placed millions more in the unemployment queue, and taken our country backward.
None of the promises made by President Cyril Ramaphosa in his last five SONA speeches have ever been kept, and not a single piece of pragmatic, workable legislation has been tabled at the National Assembly to realise Ramaphosa’s ‘New Dawn’. The South African economy has all but flatlined, there are no new jobs, corruption is worse than it has ever been, crime is spiraling out of control, and millions of our children are starving to death.
In 2023 alone, 162 000 more people were pushed into poverty. According to the South African Reserve Bank, South Africa’s medium-term growth expectation of 1,1% does not match the prospected 1,5% population growth, meaning that South Africans continue to get poorer. According to the latest Corruption Perception Index (CPI), South Africa has fallen to its lowest level ever recorded, scoring an abysmal 41 out of 100 on this globally respected index.
By embracing the National Health Insurance (NHI) Bill, President Ramaphosa is taking a wrecking ball to our public health system, driving skilled doctors and medical personnel from our country, and killing South Africa’s status as a world leader in healthcare innovation. We can’t push the NHI through parliament when government cannot even afford to employ and place our existing graduate doctors. Furthermore, we cannot embrace NHI when the ANC cannot even feed our children. According to the Eastern Cape Department of Health, 1722 children under the age of five in the province were newly diagnosed with severe acute malnutrition between August 2022 and September 2023. Of these, 114 died have died.
President Ramaphosa’s recital of the story of Tintswalo, the child of democracy, makes glaring omissions of the ANC-created struggles that many in her generation now face. In South Africa today, there is a 70% chance that Tintswalo will be unemployed. There is a 50% chance that she is one of the 30 million people who live below the poverty line. Any day, Tintswalo could become one of the 75 people murdered, or one of the 115 women who are raped or subjected to gender-based violence each and every day. Should she get sick, Tintswalo may die in a state hospital that has no electricity due to load shedding. And when she opens her taps, there is no longer any water coming out. The fact of the matter is that Tintswalo’s hopes and dreams as a child of democracy have been stolen by the ANC. Far from a ‘New Dawn’, South Africa is now at a dusk of despair, but there is hope.
The SONA that South Africans can look forward to, is the address delivered by a new national government after this year’s General Elections with the Democratic Alliance (DA) at its core. For as the ANC, for the first time in 30 years, loses its national majority, South Africa is eager to embrace its coalition future. The inevitability of a national coalition means that South Africans must think not about which party will govern them, but about which values and principles will guide a new government and its policies. And South Africa is ready for new ideas, and new laws that will serve their interests and not the interests of ANC cadres.
For all President Ramaphosa’s populist posturing and policy proposals this evening, including the doubling down on state-centric policy and legislation and the arrogance of a president who is completely out of touch with ordinary South Africans, the reality is that none of these offerings are workable in the financial framework of a 6% budget deficit.
30 years of ANC national government has caused our economy to stagnate and led to significant fiscal restraint – an environment in which the ANC is now pursuing desperate and populist measures such as tapping into the gold and foreign exchange contingency reserve account of the Reserve Bank, essentially killing any economic buffer for our country against unforeseen external market shocks. This as a looming tax hike under the ANC will be the final nail in the coffin for millions of South African households struggling to put food on the table.
What South Africa needs is a complete reprioritisation of its national budget that cuts the fat from cabinet perks and a bloated public wage bill, and redirects money towards paying better social grants that meet the food poverty line, fixes our electricity crisis by embracing privatisation, invests in education, and embraces policies that liberate our economy to fast track growth and job creation.
The ANC’s hot air has now dissipated. The time has come for real change that is rooted in logical, workable ideas, and codified through sound legislation at a new and reformed parliament to be quickly enacted. The ANC cannot pretend to be the vanguard of the poor, nor the international community’s moral compass when we now have the highest youth unemployment in the world at just over 60%, and where millions more South Africans suffer without electricity, clean drinking water, or adequate housing while ANC politicians re-enrich themselves with every tender under the guise of empowerment and redress.
As President Cyril Ramaphosa delivers his last SONA in 2024, South Africa will also be waving goodbye to an ANC national government. The lesson that each and every South African has learned from 30 years of democracy is not that the ANC has served them well, but that democracy serves them well. As the tides turn against the ANC in this year’s election, South Africans will choose a new future through the ballot box to truly take our country forward.
The key takeaway from President Ramaphosa’s 2024 SONA is this: 30 years of South African democracy does not mean we should endure an eternity under the ANC. It is time for new ideas. It is time for a new government. And South Africa is ready to chart a new path under a new, DA-led coalition government that will govern with the interests of the people at heart. And when this government is elected, and formed after the 2024 general elections, so then will our country have a true, and exciting SONA to look forward to as we truly realise the vision of a free, and prosperous South Africa.
Regards
John Steenhuisen MP
Leader of the Democratic Alliance
What Uncle Cyril Said:
Tintswalo, a child of democracy
As the country marks 30 years of democracy, President Cyril Ramaphosa has used his State of the Nation Address (SONA) to outline how government has impacted the lives of ordinary people over the past three decades.
Painting a picture of a child born in 1994, the President told a story of Tintswalo who grew up in a society that was worlds apart from the South Africa of her parents, grandparents and great-grandparents.
“The story of the first 30 years of our democracy can be best told through the life of a child called Tintswalo born at the dawn of freedom in 1994. She grew up in a society governed by a constitution rooted in equality, the rule of law, and affirmation of the inherent dignity of every citizen.
“Tintswalo, and many others born at the same time as her, were beneficiaries of the first policies of the democratic state to provide free health care for pregnant women and children under the age of six. Tintswalo’s formative years were spent in a house provided by the state, one of millions of houses built to shelter the poor,” President Ramaphosa said on Thursday.
He described her upbringing as being in a household provided with basic water and electricity, in a house where her parents were likely to have lived without electricity before 1994.
“Tintswalo was enrolled in a school in which her parents did not have to pay school fees, and each school day she received a nutritious meal as part of a programme that today supports nine million learners from poor families.
“The democratic state provided a child support grant to meet her basic needs. This grant, together with other forms of social assistance, continues to be a lifeline for more than 26 million South Africans every month.
“With this support, Tintswalo – democracy’s child – was able to complete high school. Through the assistance of the National Student Financial Aid Scheme, Tintswalo attended one of our Technical Vocational Education and Training (TVET) colleges and obtained a qualification,” the President said.
When Tintswalo entered the world of work, she was able to progress and thrive with the support of the state’s employment equity and black economic empowerment policies.
“With the income she earned, she was able to save, to start a family, to move into a better house, and to live a better life. This is the story of millions of people who have been born since the dawn of our democracy,” President Ramaphosa said.
Lifting millions out of poverty
Delivering the last SONA for the sixth administration at the Cape Town City Hall, the President said government’s policies and programmes have lifted millions out of dire poverty.
“Today, fewer South Africans go hungry and fewer live in poverty. In 1993, South Africa faced a significant poverty challenge, with 71.1 percent of its population living in poverty. However, under the democratic government, there has been a consistent decline in these numbers.
“By 2010, the poverty rate had dropped to 60.9 percent, and it continued to decrease, reaching 55.5 percent in 2020, as reported by the World Bank. This progress has been made possible by extensive support to those in society who need it most,” the President said.
Five years ago, government introduced a further measure to tackle poverty by introducing the National Minimum Wage as envisaged in the Freedom Charter.
“The decision by key role players, being business and labour and communities, to introduce the minimum wage immediately raised the wages of over 6 million workers,” the President said.
He said today, nearly nine out of every ten households live in a formal dwelling.
“One of the most visible, impactful and meaningful achievements in the first three decades of freedom has been in providing homes to the people. Today, nearly nine out of every ten households live in a formal dwelling.
“Where there were once shacks and mud houses, there are now homes of brick and mortar. These are homes with water to drink and to wash with, homes with electricity for lighting and cooking.
“At the end of apartheid, only 6 out of 10 people had access to clean drinking water. Today, that figure has increased to nearly 9 out of 10 South Africans,” the President said.
South Africans living longer than ever before
“Life expectancy has increased from 54 years in 2003 to 65 years in 2023. Maternal and infant deaths have declined dramatically. We have built more hospitals and clinics, especially in poor areas, providing better quality care to more South Africans.
“Today, 95% of persons diagnosed with HIV know their status, 79% of those receive antiretroviral treatment, and 93% of those are virally suppressed. New HIV infections among young people have declined significantly,” the President said. – SAnews.gov.za
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