When Cyril Ramaphosa became South Africa’s president in 2018, his supporters said he would bring an end to “nine wasted years” under Jacob Zuma. “It could not get worse,” they said. But it did get worse — politically and economically.
The time has come for an unemotional debate about the “eight wasted years” under Ramaphosa.
Starting with the politics, we were told that Ramaphosa was popular, business-friendly and liked by white people. But two national electoral disasters in 2019 and 2024 — when the ANC lost 4.65 and 17.32 percentage points respectively — accounted for 85.4% of the party’s 25.72 percentage point losses from 2009.
During the 2021 local government elections, the ANC suffered an 8.36 percentage point decline to 46.12%.
If one looks at the economy, there were annual average GDP growth rates of 2.7% under Nelson Mandela (1994 to 1999), 4% under Thabo Mbeki (1999 to 2008), 1.9% under Jacob Zuma (2009 to 2017) and 0.6% under Ramaphosa (2018 to 2024). The annual average GDP growth rate was three times faster during Zuma’s “nine wasted years”.
Ramaphosa’s presidency is objectively the worst since 1994. His supporters blame the economic effects of the Covid pandemic. Yet from 2018 to 2024, 155 emerging and developing countries cruised to an annual average GDP growth rate of 3.7%, according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Emerging and developing Asia (30 countries) grew by 5% a year. Let us also not forget that the economy was collapsing before the pandemic and GDP grew by 0.3% in 2019. There were three consecutive quarters of declining GDP before the pandemic.
The recovery, with an annual average GDP growth rate of 1.1% from 2022 to 2024, has been one of the slowest in the world. This compares with annual average GDP growth rates of 4.2% and 5.4% for emerging and developing economies and emerging and developing Asia, respectively. Why is it impossible for South Africa to grow at the same rate as so many other emerging economies?
Ramaphosa’s business-friendly policies did not deliver increased investment. He hosted numerous investment conferences where companies got free publicity while making fake pledges worth hundreds of billions of rand. From 2017 to 2024, gross fixed capital formation (GFCF), a measure of total investment, collapsed by 16.7%. As a percentage of GDP, it declined to 14.1% from 16.4%.
Despite talk of a recovery, it would be difficult to see the green shoots with a powerful microscope. There is no evidence of an upturn and the IMF does not believe the hype
During seven of the last nine quarters there has been declining investment in the economy.
From 2017 to 2024, real per capita public investment by general government and public corporations collapsed by 33.2%.
There has been a public sector investment strike, which is the main reason for the decline of total investment.
What logic is there in slashing public investment when it has such high GDP and employment multipliers? Over the past eight years, unemployment has soared despite so many initiatives to create jobs.
From the fourth quarter of 2017 to the third quarter of 2025, the labour force grew by 4.2-million people, but the economy created only 884,000 jobs. The number of unemployed people increased by 3.3-million to 12.5-million. The unemployment rate increased to 42.4% from 36.3%. After eight years, there is still no plan to address the jobs crisis.
Ramaphosa was supposed to reverse state capture, especially at Eskom and Transnet. On January 20 2018, a month after he became ANC president, he appointed a new board at Eskom. It was a disaster, and the multiple Eskom plant breakdowns started in 2018, not 2007.
Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) load-shedding statistics show that the period from 2018 to 2024, under Ramaphosa’s presidency, accounted for 95.5% of the energy that was shed since 2007. The period under Zuma’s presidency accounted for just 3.5%. The graphs that illustrate the collapse of Transnet’s operational performance show that the decline started after 2018.
In his first state of the nation address in February 2018, Ramaphosa said he would be getting social partners to “collaborate in building a social compact on which we will create drivers of economic recovery”.
This was a recurring feature of many subsequent addresses, including the one in 2022, where he said there would be a social compact within 100 days. Eight years later, there is no social compact.
We can only speculate why a president who made this his signature pledge has done so little to achieve a social compact. The state’s hijacking of an initiative that was started by the foundations of struggle icons and former president FW de Klerk is unlikely to deliver a credible social compact.
Despite talk of a recovery, it would be difficult to see the green shoots with a powerful microscope. There is no evidence of an upturn, and the IMF does not believe the hype. It has forecast an annual GDP growth rate of 1.5% from 2026 to 2028.
Under such a scenario, the country will face a bleak future with no hope for millions of people. In 2028, GDP per capita — an imperfect measure of average living standards — will be lower than it was in 2007.
The number of unemployed people will soar to 14.4-million in the first quarter of 2029, and the unemployment rate will increase to 44.6%.
In the unlikely event that Ramaphosa finishes his full term of office, we will be talking about 11 wasted years as president.
- Gqubule is an economist.
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