Around this time last year President Cyril Ramaphosa was readying himself to deliver the yearly State of the Nation address. High on most people’s minds was whether his “fellow South Africans” would hear the entirety of the First Citizen’s (FC) soliloquy without the power going out or the EFF, well, eish, just being the jeering cynics they have been for the last couple of years. 2023 had been the worst year of power outages and the Red Brigade, following a High Court ruling that six of its MPs would be banned from the event thought it better to boycott the shindig entirely.
There’s supposed to be a joke somewhere in there: that they were maybe watching from the comfort of the Saxonwold Shebeen, and that’s probably the one thing – outside of the Madiba quotes – that one remembers of the torturous regurgitation, namely tackling corruption. “We will not stop,” assured the president, “until every person responsible for corruption is held to account. We will not stop until all stolen money has been recovered. We will not stop until corruption is history.”
On this score he went on: “Freezing orders of R14-billion have been granted to the NPA’s Asset Forfeiture Unit for State Capture-related cases, and around R8.6-billion in corrupt proceeds have been returned to the state.”
He who has been called a “spokesperson” by City Press’s Mondli Makhanya is apparently showing he’s no pushover, that he is indeed the guy whom the bad guys should fear more than they do Bheki Cele, the behatted Minister of Police. The president’s next nugget is something reminiscent of the new sheriff in town drawing out his hypothetical revolvers for all to see even though Mr Pres has been wearing the badge for around five years. “A restored and revitalised South African Revenue Service,” says the president, “has collected R4.8-billion in unpaid taxes as a result of evidence presented at the [State Capture] Commission, while the Special Investigating Unit has instituted civil litigation to the value of R64-billion.”
Impressive stuff, indeed. Impressive figures especially for us lowlyfolk, yet the 26s in prison are all the poorer because it’s been a while since a politician with real gwaap came hobbling through the bars. One of the more prominent was Andile Lungisa but he’d done nothing but to smash a jug over an opposition member’s head. Useless in prison he who has no ready cash on his person. It would bode the powers that be well if they remember that perhaps someday jail is a place that – if there’s any justice in this country – they should be lined up in, trays in hand awaiting their next meal.
But we digress. We were on the huffing boycotters, the EFF. If they thought there’d be anything worthy of interest this year they might have stormed the Bastille, if only to distract the rest of us from hearing the good news. But like the rest of us they are probably scratching their heads wondering, wait a minute, dude, isn’t this a blatant copy and paste from last year? One must feel for Pres Ramaphosa. Ditto his speech writers.
Charged as he is with the world’s most unequal society, skyrocketing unemployment, war zone-like murder rates; he doesn’t even know exactly the number of foreign nationals squatting illegally on his back yard but still, he is the guy tasked with telling us we’re doing just fine. At least the country is in a far better place than it was under apartheid.
Hardly an ideal position for those with honest bones in them. But then again, the man has surely learnt the Matrix-like bullet dodging. Our president has ducked the bullets from Marikana, the discredited New Dawn, foreign currency snuck in his couches….man, he’s even eluded those yesteryear comrades – the scathing ones who may have called him a sellout for having rubbed shoulders with white mining bosses back in the dark days when clear distinctions were drawn – and understood – between black and white.
As small-time writers here at eParkeni, listening to president Cyril, the first thing that came to mind was, wow! the guy must have Bell Pottinger sorts in his communications department. Real PR geniuses. Like all marketing, though, it works well for the brand – in this case the ruling ANC – but whether it serves the target market – meaning lowly you and I – dear reader, for that you’ll have to take a stroll on the ground and see if the messaging matches the lived reality.
Never thought we’d say this, but the absence of red overalls in the House did not go unnoticed. To a layman’s gaze, those came way closer to home than the bespoke suits, LV handbags and dark leaders looking like they are from some first-world Scandinavian utopia. I’m sure one could buy a year’s worth of grocery just by pawning one of the Honourable Member’s acrylic nails. If that doesn’t tell you something about how removed our comrades are to the nation’s woes, perhaps the president’s words will set you straight.
Listen to a summary of them. Youth unemployment has gone down by 72 000 during the third quarter of 2023.
Rousing applause from the House.
But still, some 7.8million capable, functional, breathing people sit jobless. Still the House claps like their lives depend on it – which, for all intents and purposes, probably do. Some 43.4% of unemployed youths in the country ask themselves if all those years spent trying to better themselves in education could not have been better served pushing contraband or becoming iinkabi – assassins of the most cheapest, reliable order.
Earning an honest living in SA nowadays is becoming anathema. The public sector is replete with the side chicks and nephews and sons of the politically connected. Chief Justice Raymond Zondo found the whole cadre deployment idea as ‘unconstitutional’ and so the president was telling us that he would ensure “that people with the right skills are appointed to key positions.” This made one wonder whether our leader isn’t living in China or some parallel universe.
With the corrections guy, Arthur Fraser, clearly bent on tainting the president’s image, he’s clearly had too much on his place to pay meaningful attention to the Auditor-General’s (AGSA) reports. A miserable indictment those have for us: “AGSA identified 268 material irregularities in the 2022/23 municipality audits under the Municipal Financial Management Act, amounting to an estimated value of R5.19 billion. Most of these were related to procurement and payments, resource management, revenue management, and interest and penalties.” In its 2021/2022 audit it found that “Of the 257 audited municipalities, only 38 (15%) had received clean audits, and 21 of those were in the Western Cape.” In orderly societies this would see the toppling of governments, or mass protests on the streets, here at home the show goes on as normal.
Through the Presidential Employment Stimulus, says Ramaphosa, “we have created more than 1.7 million work and livelihood opportunities. Through the stimulus, we have placed more than one million school assistants in 23 000 schools, providing participants with valuable work experience while improving learning outcomes.” It’s worth noting that a bulk of these “livelihood opportunities” often amount to waste pickers who earn peanuts and have no benefits.
As it concerns the energy crisis, Ramaphosa mentions several measures which makes him “confident that the worst is behind us and the end of load-shedding is finally within reach.” Here, he also points that billions have already been invested in the Northern Cape with its “optimal solar conditions.” You’d remember that last year the president appointed a minister of electricity, Kgosientsho Ramakgopa, who soon became famous for shebeen-ish dance moves than he was for putting an end to the load-shedding nightmare.
In point form some of the key points:
- Special Economic Zone in the Boegoebaai port to drive investment in green energy.
- To support electric vehicle manufacturing in South Africa to grow our automotive sector.
- To improve our ports and rail network and restore them to world-class standards.
- Completed the auction of broadband spectrum after more than a decade of delays, resulting in new investment, lower data costs and improved network reach and quality.
- Around 25% of farmland in our country is now owned black South Africans.
- The latest matric pass rate, at 82.9%, is the highest ever.
- Nearly nine out of every 10 households live in a formal dwelling.
- The recruitment of 20,000 police officers over the last two years and another 10,000 in the year to come.
Of course, rather than dwell on the myriad challenges facing the country, the president sought to highlight the improvements made in the 30 years of democracy. Not unexpected, he touched on quite liberally on the years of state capture as well as the previous regime and how the ruling ANC has sought to better the misfortunes suffered by the previously marginalised. As he waxed lyrical, several polls were sounding the death knell of Khongolose, predicting that party support might fall below fifty percent in the coming elections. But judging by the president’s tone, he seemed undaunted by that prospect. However, with the emergence of new parties and a pervasive sense of loss of confidence in the ruling party on the ground, we may see fewer MPs from the ANC in the House next year. And to the unemployed, that might feel like cause to knock back a few cold ones at the local.