Eight Sonas later, Ramaphosa still speaking like it's his first: Malema

Though he was doing it for the eighth time,  President Cyril Ramaphosa stood before the country and spoke as if he was delivering his first state of the nation address. 

This is according to EFF leader Julius Malema, who tore into Ramaphosa in the post-Sona debate in parliament, saying the president shied away from accounting on promises made in past speeches. 

He said the country was grappling with increasing unemployment, high fuel prices, water shortages, expensive transport and high food prices. 

Malema said these were the crises Ramaphosa inherited when he took over in 2018. 

“Speaker, President Cyril Ramaphosa stood before a joint sitting of the National Assembly and the National Council of Provinces on Thursday last week, addressing South Africans and the world, to deliver his eighth state of the nation address,” said Malema. “Yet, he spoke as if it were his first-ever Sona. There was no sense of accountability, no meaningful reporting, and no acknowledgment of the economic crisis facing our people.”

Malema went back to Ramaphosa’s popular Thuma Mina Sona speech delivered in 2019 where he promised a high-speed train that would cut across the entire country which is yet to be seen six years later.

“You asked us to imagine a country where bullet trains pass through Johannesburg as they travel from here to Musina, and stop in Buffalo City on their way from eThekwini back here in Cape Town,” said Malema. 

“You said to us the time has arrived to build a new smart city founded on the technologies of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. We sent you to fulfil these dreams of yours, and years later you have not returned with a train or a smart city, and your term of office is slowly nearing an end.”

He said that in 2020, Ramaphosa promised to deal with state capture crimes but after spending R1bn on the Zondo commission, no-one has been prosecuted. 

Malema said Ramaphosa’s Sona declared 2021 as year of economic recovery — yet the country’s economy has further deteriorated. 

In 2022, Malema said, Ramaphosa promised to deal with governance challenges but has failed to deal with malfeasance and corruption in the public sector. 

Malema recalled that in 2023 Ramaphosa vowed to work together but that his party continued to deploy incompetent people in municipalities and state-owned enterprises. 

Last year, to highlight strides made by the government, Ramaphosa spoke of a Tintswalo born in 1994 who grew up in a house built by the government, received state-funded education, free health care and managed to graduate.

But Malema told Ramaphosa that such a Tintswalo does not exist. 

“The real Tintswalo was born in a shack, raped at the age of six, dropped out of school before reaching grade 7, and was murdered while looking for a job,” said Malema. 

Ramaphosa was now, Malema said, telling the country that we would not be bullied — in reference to the attacks from the US over foreign policy. 

“And now, this year, you tell us that you ‘will not be bullied’. We agree with you that we must not be bullied. But you failed to tell us what you are going to do about it,” said Malema. “It is not enough to simply say you will not be bullied — you must tell us what action you will take. When you respond on Thursday, we expect you to provide real answers.”

Malema said the R940bn infrastructure plan was yet another empty promise, the R340bn allocated to state-owned enterprises was simply a waste of money and that the public-private partnerships earmarked for entities such as Transnet were nothing but privatisation. 

“President, we know that blended finance will become another looting scheme when students here at CPUT are sleeping outside at this very moment due to a lack of housing,” said Malema. 

“But as the Economic Freedom Fighters, we have adopted a theme of the ‘Year of Picket Lines’. We are going back to the streets. We are reclaiming our identity, and we want to reunite with our people. We will go to the streets to demand water for our people, to demand the speedy allocation of housing, to demand the eradication of pit toilets, and to fight for service delivery.”

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