Tel The egram

By Staff Reporters

Accusatory fingers are pointing at President Cyril Ramaphosa’s administration for failing to come up with concrete and executable solutions to the myriad socio-economic problems affecting millions of South Africans.

Ramaphosa delivered his State of the Nation Address at a time when South Africa is in mounting predicaments. These include high unemployment rates, rampant corruption, debilitating load shedding, intensifying economic distress, intensifying violent crime, abject poverty and a long list of other socio-economic woes.

Ordinary citizens, analysts and economists at large have noted that the president has dismally failed to decisively deal with problems that have put the country under siege.

Promises upon promises

Some have gone as far as saying he is only good at making empty promises.

Civil action group Outa, told businesstech.co.za that the president’s speech missed the mark, and delivered only more empty promises.

“The President’s State of the Nation Address failed to inspire confidence. He acknowledged many of the problems but did not offer believable solutions. He offered many promises, many of which we’ve heard before,” the group said.

“ It would be wonderful if all these promises were realised or even underway. The President sought to inspire hope, but he succeeded in reminding us how bad the situation is. His address confirms the country has been poorly managed for too long. ”

Yongama Zigebe of the UDM Youth Vanguard was more scathing in an interview on Newzroom Afrika.

“ Indeed, we would have preferred that the president sent us a voice note or even chipped in with a WhatsApp document rather than wasting our time and having the EFF play their gimmicks which as a protest movement they believe was warranted.

“With this Sona, we expected nothing of the nothingness it was. It was a rehash of other State of the Nation Addresses the president has done. It ’s all promises and promises and there is no report back to say this is what we have done, this is what has trickled down to the people on the ground and the positive impact that we have seen happening, ” Zigebe said.

Hitting the right notes

The leader of the African Transformation Movement (ATM) Vuyolwethu Zungula wrote an open letter which was very scathing of Ramaphosa’s incumbency. He also took a swipe at the president, calling him “a constitutional delinquent”.

Zungula wrote: “In February 2018, President Ramaphosa themed his tenure as New Dawn where he promised the citizens of South Africa Heaven and Earth. Some of the highlights of the promises included behaving ethically and espousing ethical leadership in honour of President Mandela.

“In his address, Mr Ramaphosa hit all the right notes and spoke about the creation of jobs, factories, roads, houses and clinics.

“Some of the empty promises that were made in the Feb 2018 SONA, included Radical Economic Transformation where he said women and communities would be owners, managers and even financiers. He said land distribution programmes would be accelerated.

“In hindsight, it is now clear that these were all lies to simply lure the voters to vote for his party in the 2019 National Elections. It ’s common cause that the ANC caucus in Parliament twisted the promised Expropriation Without Compensation which was part of Mr Ramaphosa ’s rhetoric in the February 2018 SONA.

“To the disgust of the left-leaning opposition parties including the ATM, we discovered that the Bill to amend s25 of the Constitution to enable Expropriation Without Compensation was now using a new phrase, “Expropriation With No Compensation”, instead, which, has the opposite effect. It ’s not clear why Mr Ramaphosa and his party undermined the intelligence of the nation through such failed primary school trickery.

“Beyond the 2019 elections and following his inauguration ceremony as the President of the Republic of South Africa, he made new promises in the June 2019 SONA in particular to reduce crime, however the latest report delivered by Minister Cele on 22 Aug 2022 paints a shocking picture of a country losing the war against crime.

“In the 2019 SONA, 500 000 housing units were promised, to date just under 14 000 were deliv -

Story Continued from Page 1 ered by the Housing Development Agency. There was also a Smart City promised near Lanseria Airport, where the earmarked land to this day remains a bush.

“The list of empty promises is endless. As recently as in Feb 2022 he promised a New Social Compact within 100 days, yet no less than