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said the benefits of the progress made are not yet being felt. Load-shedding has not abated.

But he said: “We will soon experience the impact of the unprecedented investment being made in new power generation.

“When we emerge from this crisis, our energy system will have been fundamentally transformed. It will be more stable, more reliable, more affordable, and more sustainable.” He told thousands of South Africans that miners now have the right to strike without being dismissed, schools are open to all races, many South Africans live in formal houses and social grants support around 18 million poor people.

But while progress has been made, Ramaphosa admitted, “our country has been hit by a global financial crisis; political, social and economic shocks; worsening natural disasters; and the most severe global pandemic in over a century.” These setbacks, he said, have made the devastating apartheid legacy of inequality worse.

“We are also now counting the cost of years of underinvestment in our electricity, water, rail and port infrastructure. We are feeling the damaging effects of state capture and corruption and concerted efforts to weaken our public institutions.”

As the country works to rebuild and reconstruct, Ramaphosa said, South Africa faces challenges that are far different to those experienced in the earliest days of democracy.

He said freedom cannot be meaningful when more than 10 million South Africans are unemployed.

“It is because South Africans need jobs that we have raised our ambition in the next phase of our investment drive, to raise R2 trillion in new investment over the next five years.