PODCAST | The morning after Ramaphosa’s old dawn promises

TimesLIVE contributor and analyst Eusebius McKaiser examined President Cyril Ramaphosa’s state of the nation address.

He argues that the president delivered his speech more persuasively than usual, with apparent control over the detail of the narrative, and with admirable speaker energy, notwithstanding major crises within the ANC and the state.

However, McKaiser warns against setting the political leadership bar too low. He pushes back against those praising the president for his “honesty”, and for taking responsibility for the various governance weaknesses under his leadership.

Listen to his thoughts here:

McKaiser argues that instead — on the empirical record — this ANC-led government has demonstrated an inability to deliver on past Sona promises, simply repeating these annually. One such example is commitment to reducing red tape to ease business transactions, and more generally to create an environment conducive to doing business and thereby creating opportunities for the youth to enter the labour market.

Similarly, with the fight against crime, argues McKaiser, it is disingenuous to imply that, but for the Zondo commission’s state capture report, it was difficult to fight corruption effectively. This means the ANC has a huge credibility gap that has only widened in recent years, and it is not clear how further promises restore trust in the government's political will and technical capability to do what it is meant to do constitutionally.

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