Flayed Zuma delivers transformation plan
President labelled illegitimate and a thief EFF members thrown out, other MPs walk out
President Jacob Zuma promised big but delivered little in his state of the nation address on Thursday night, which he had promised would launch “a new chapter of radical economic transformation”.
But none of the measures that he outlined on land reform, black economic empowerment or education was new, as they had already been announced, or were in process.
Zuma was subjected to a barrage of insults and attacks by opposition parties, which had delayed his state of the nation speech for more than an hour, labelling him as illegitimate and a thief who had broken his oath of office.
When he eventually got a chance, Zuma spoke in some detail about the enduring racial inequalities in SA which had not been overcome in the postapartheid era. The most lasting impact of the evening was not his speech, but the vehemence with which he was attacked with EFF leaders addressing Zuma directly as “a criminal,” “rotten to the core” and “a constitutional delinquent”.
The DA, which had requested a minute of silence for the 94 victims of the Esidimeni tragedy, held signs of remembrance and then walked out saying that Zuma “had broken SA” and that Speaker Baleka Mbete “had broken Parliament”.
Apart from an intervention from ANC chief whip Jackson Mthembu, who reminded the house that a motion to remove Zuma had been previously defeated, the ANC benches did little to come to his defence.
EFF members were violently removed by parliamentary security officers, while the DA
and most members of the Congress of the People left after being ordered to do so by the presiding officers.
After more than an hour of mayhem in the House Zuma delivered his speech in his usual halting style. Noting that there “can be no stability in any economy where the majority is excluded” and that political liberation was incomplete with economic emancipation, he said it was necessary “to move towards a new chapter of radical economic transformation”.
“The state will play a role in the economy to drive transformation. Government will utilise to the maximum the strategic levers that are available to the state including regulations, legislation, the budget, procurement and black economic empowerment charters to influence the private sector and drive transformation,” he said.
The majority of blacks remained economically disempowered and the racial disparities in household income remained “shockingly huge”.
The pace of transformation in the workplace and implementation of affirmative action policies remained slow with white males dominating the top echelons. These patterns needed to be corrected, Zuma stressed.
He said the business community accepted these transformation imperatives. “We are starting a new chapter of radical economic transformation .... The state will play a role in the economy to drive this transformation,” Zuma said.
The president cited high levels of concentration in the economy and levels of collusion and cartels as barriers to transformation as they squeezed out small players and hampered the entry of black entrepreneurs.
Many of the laws and regulations mentioned by Zuma have already been passed.
Zuma insisted that undue government delays and unnecessary red tape related to investment — such as licences and visas — would not be tolerated. “We should make it easy to do business in SA,” he said.
Among the few significant announcements he made was that Eskom would sign the outstanding power purchase agreements with independent power producers of renewable energy, potentially ending a year long standoff between the private sector and Eskom.
He also said government remained committed to reaching a deal with the mining industry on a new version of the Mining Charter. With regard to the mining industry, Zuma said the government would continue to pursue direct state involvement in mining.
The Mining Company of South Africa Bill would be presented to the Cabinet and Parliament during the year. He also said he would refer the expropriation bill back to Parliament for reconsideration on the basis that the proposed law might not pass constitutional master due to inadequate public participation during its processing.
The government is under pressure to complete the land reform programme.
In 2016, Parliament passed the expropriation bill, paving the way for the government to pay for land at a value determined by the valuer-general. The bill will provide for expropriation of land in the “public interest”, ending the willing-buyer, willing-seller approach to land reform.