Ramaphosa must provide clarity regarding government’s way forward

19 June 2019

After 25 years, South Africa has had enough of empty promises and the time has come to put forward practical and feasible plans that will effectively address problems and ensure economic growth and, thus, offer hope.

President Cyril Ramaphosa's State of the Nation Address (SONA) tomorrow is of the utmost importance seeing as it will reveal whether the President really is acting in the best interests of the country or whether the ANC will once again be put before South Africa and its people.

Economic growth is not negotiable. The President will have to set out clear plans for how his government intends to ensure growth and simultaneously address the growing problem of unemployment.

Policy certainty is inextricably intertwined with this. Without policy certainty, investor confidence will not be recouped and the economy will not grow.

The FF Plus wants to emphasise matters like private ownership which is being threatened by expropriation without compensation, the future of the Reserve Bank about which the ANC has only managed to create confusion and the future of certain public enterprises that place an immense financial burden on the government and the taxpayer.

Other key aspects that must be addressed are crime and the high incidence of service delivery protests that occur countrywide. The President must also comment on the progress that has been made with the promises that he made in his SONA in February this year, particularity with regard to matters like job creation, schools and education.

Concerning his administration, the President must indicate what direction his new, restructured Cabinet will take as new departments were created and the mandates of these must be clearly spelled out.

President Ramaphosa, however, finds himself in a political pinch seeing as there is a lot of instability in his party with senior ANC leaders using policy directions as a political weapon in their infighting.

Together with all straight-thinking South Africans, the FF Plus hopes that this SONA will be less of an election-promises-SONA of pure populist rhetoric and that instead, real plans will be put forward that will ensure policy certainty.

Issued by Pieter Groenewald, FF Plus Leader, 19 June 2019