CAPE TOWN - It couldn’t have been a more dramatic coincidence, intended or otherwise.
That President Cyril Ramaphosa’s State of the Nation Address (Sona) on Thursday should have been held on the eve of the 32nd anniversary of Nelson Mandela’s rally address on the day of his release from Victor Verster Prison on February 11, 1990 after 27 years of incarceration by the apartheid regime.
The sole standout similarity between the two speeches is the fact that they were both delivered from a podium at the historic Cape Town City Hall – one the first speech by an iconic free man, and the other by a president desperately trying to re-establish the relevance of the governing ANC to South Africans, many of whom by his own admission have been left behind in the last decade or so.
Madiba’s address symbolised a brave new era, not only for a free and fair South Africa… But also for the rising continent per se.
His rallying call was mesmerising to his millions of acolytes, those lucky enough to have packed the City Hall, and of course the global TV audience of over a billion who were there in spirit, if not in person.
His opening salvo understandably underlined an emotive ownership of freedom, denied to the overwhelming majority for centuries, and delivered to a beguiled cast as if he was interacting in a People’s Operetta:
Madiba: Amandla! (Power!).
Crowd: Ngawethu! (Is Ours!)
Madiba: i-Afrika!
Crowd: Mayibuye (Let it return)
Madiba: Mayibuye!
Crowd: i-Afrika!
“My friends, comrades, and fellow South Africans, I greet you all in the name of peace, democracy, and freedom for all. I stand here before you not as a prophet but as a humble servant of you, the people…” – the very epitome of political humility.
In contrast, Ramaphosa’s opening remarks was a stark reminder of the sombre reality of present-day South Africa, now in its 28th year of uninterrupted democratic rule under the ANC.
“This year, for the first time the State of the Nation Address is not being delivered in the Chamber of the National Assembly. That we are gathered in Cape Town City Hall instead of the National Assembly, reflects the extraordinary circumstances of this time,” the president lamented.
An arson attack on the seat of democracy and the Constitution put paid to that, which Ramaphosa maintains was to many compatriots “symbolic of the devastation caused by the Covid-19 pandemic… By rising the unemployment and deepening poverty.”
There is none of the metaphorical bluster of yesteryear alluding to the Cape’s unique fynbos ecosystem nor to quotes of biblical proportions, but still heavy on a motley of rhetoric of aspirations and the archetypal to-do list in almost all of the 19-page speech.
In reality, it was more of the same. The priorities in 2022 are effectively a continuum of those identified in Sona 2021 – overcoming the impact of the pandemic; a massive rollout of infrastructure; a substantial increase in local production; an employment stimulus to create jobs and support livelihoods; and the rapid expansion of power-generation capacity.
“Our country has suffered several damaging blows in recent times. A confluence of forces, many of them outside of our control, has brought us to where we are now,” rued Ramaphosa.
“South Africans concede that the once-in-a-century pandemic with its impacts on health systems and supply chains, and the global economy did disrupt national agendas, including our own.
But many of the structural deficiencies – rising public debt, sustained subdued GDP growth, a bloated bureaucracy and high cadre deployment, high unemployment, especially among the youth, interrupted electricity supplies, world beating levels of income and other inequality, a high crime rate, entrenched gender-based violence and abuse of women, endemic corruption and even pandemic profiteering, especially in public procurement involving the private sector, involving even ANC ministers and party apparatchiks, all predate Covid-19.
Global gatekeepers including the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, and the World Bank attest to the above. Even the president is embarrassed by the above metrics of shame.
The problem is not the aspirations, but the indecisiveness and lack of urgency in delivering on the reforms which the IMF board highlighted yet again on Friday, following the release of its final Article IV Consultation Report.
This governance modus operandi is in large part a symptom of the structure of the ANC and its anachronistic relationship with its coalition partner, the SACP, and the history of the political Struggle against apartheid.
ANC leaders will always be beholden to this idiosyncrasy, which simply fuels entrenched factionalism.
Still smarting from a bloody nose in last November’s countrywide local elections which saw the ANC share of the popular vote sink to a new low at 46.04%, and with the 2024 general elections looming, Ramaphosa’s riposte is that of a consensus builder based on a new social compact between the government and the people.
“Cyril the Builder” – now there’s a thought! But what’s in his builder’s yard? There is a motley of policy scraps – more form than substance.
These include more private sector involvement to “unleash the dynamism of the economy”. Some 80% of all employed South Africans work in the private sector; and a “shared responsibility” involving government, labour, business and communities.
On the vaccine front, the government has administered 30 million doses which means 42% of all adults, and 60% of everyone over 50 is fully vaccinated.
Some 12 400MW of new power projects are planned over the next few years – the current shortfall is around 4 000MW of electricity; a new loan guarantee scheme to help SMEs recover from the pandemic and civic unrest; reforming the Business Act to simplify and reduce the regulatory burden on SMEs; a R133 billion public-private roll out of infrastructure projects pipeline in various sectors; a new Mining Exploration Strategy; a response to the Zondo Commission Report on State Capture by June 30; and the establishment of a state-owned holding company to house strategic SOEs and exercise a coordinated shareholder oversight.
Whether South Africans will heed the president’s rallying call to join him in rebuilding the Broken Nation to achieve a more just and equal society, only time will tell!
Parker is an economist and writer based in London
Cape Times