President Cyril Ramaphosa delivered a frank assessment of the state of the country while promising concise plans to address the several crises facing South Africans.
Ramaphosa’s ninth state of the nation address took place against the backdrop of dry taps in Johannesburg and several towns across the country as South Africans continue to be dogged by crime, corruption and general state capacity malaise.
While South Africans may be tired of hearing promises from the state, the speech would have appealed to the ANC’s government of national unity (GNU) partners as many of their demands were addressed.
Deploying the army in gang-infested areas of the Western Cape and to fight illegal mining, cleaning up the police and launching a tender dispute resolution mechanism are some of the proposals that GNU leaders made in a secret retreat last November.
Ramaphosa began by acknowledging what is good about the country including its economic recovery, the strengthening rand, growing investor confidence, increasing interest in South African equities and an end to load-shedding, though load reduction remains for certain communities.
“We are stronger today than we were a year ago. Our economy is growing again, and this growth is gathering pace,” he said to applause from some and jeering from other quarters.
He also alluded to the improvement in the country’s credit rating by Standard & Poor’s, achieving the lowest annual average CPI since 2004, and South Africa’s removal from the Financial Action Task Force greylist as indications that better days lie ahead for the economy.
He acknowledged, however, that “we are too far from where we should be.”
While the country is moving forward, the government will not claim easy victories. “For too many people, life is hard. We can only be strong when we are equal,” he said.
Turning to the harsh realities experienced by ordinary people across the country, Ramaphosa said the children of the Western Cape were caught in the crossfire of gang wars, while organised crime was “now the most immediate threat to our democracy, our society and our economic development”.
The government will step up the fight against organised crime by consolidating intelligence at a national level, identifying priority syndicates and deploying hand-picked, multidisciplinary intervention teams focused on dismantling criminal networks.
Answering the call of many communities in the Cape Flats facing the scourge of gangsterism, Ramaphosa announced the deployment of the army to support the police in the fight against gangsterism in the Western Cape and illegal mining in Gauteng.
Ramaphosa said he has directed the police minister and the South African National Defence Force to develop a technical plan to determine where the army should be deployed in the two provinces.
Ramaphosa also announced that the government will streamline firearm regulations and improve enforcement of gun laws to tackle gun violence.
“We are putting more boots on the ground through the recruitment this year of 5,500 additional police officers, adding to the 20,000 new officers we announced in previous state of the nation addresses.”
Ramaphosa reiterated his promise of real-time consequences against those implicated in the Madlanga commission.
There is no silver bullet to address this challenge, which has its roots in systemic failures and many years of neglecting infrastructure.
— President Cyril Ramaphosa
He said the hearings have exposed rampant corruption in the SAPS and some metro police departments through the abuse of power.
“We cannot tolerate this. The rule of law depends on a police service that is ethical, responsive and rooted in the communities that it serves.”
While acknowledging a police task team that will swiftly investigate what comes out of the commission, Ramaphosa announced that the State Security Agency will re-vet the senior management of the SAPS and metro police departments. The vetting process will include lifestyle audits, he said.
Reacting to the water crisis gripping the country and the protests, Ramaphosa admitted that poor planning and inadequate maintenance of water systems by many municipalities were the main causes of the problems and the reason that taps often ran dry.
“There is no silver bullet to address this challenge, which has its roots in systemic failures and many years of neglecting infrastructure,” he said.
“To ensure water security in the long term, we are building new dams and upgrading existing infrastructure. We have committed more than R156bn in public funding for water and sanitation infrastructure alone over the next three years.”
The construction of the Lesotho Highlands Water Project and other large-scale projects such as the Ntabelanga Dam, part of the Mzimvubu Water Project in the Eastern Cape, is advancing.
The government was also in the final stages of establishing a National Water Resource Infrastructure Agency to effectively manage the country’s water infrastructure and to mobilise funding for water infrastructure.
“However, the real challenge lies not in the availability of water, but in getting water to people’s taps.
“The Water Services Amendment Bill will enable us to hold water service providers accountable for their performance and withdraw their licence if they fail to deliver.
“If a municipality is not willing or able to provide a service to its residents, it must be done by another structure that can.”
These reforms will address the root causes of the water crisis, he said.
Ramaphosa also announced that the devastating foot-and-mouth disease, which has affected thousands of farms, has been classified as a national disaster.
This will allow the state to mobilise all necessary capabilities to deal with the crisis.
The official opposition MK Party rejected Ramaphosa’s address saying the president was dislodged from reality and didn’t understand the challenges that South Africans face.
Party spokesperson Nhlamulo Ndhlela said there was nothing to take away “from the state of neoliberal agenda, because that’s what this so-called Sona is”.
While EFF leader Julius Malema said his party was happy with the deployment of the army, he added this was an indication that the government has lost confidence in the police. Otherwise, he said, there was nothing new in Ramaphosa’s speech.
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