Nation needs less talk, more action

The Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse (Outa) does have a point when it argues that there is no point in watching President Cyril Ramaphosa’s State of the Nation Address (Sona) in Cape Town this evening. They won’t even be sending in the clowns tonight because the EFF’s red-overalled “fighters” will be legally prevented from disrupting proceedings on perpetual points of order. That leaves, hopefully, the R6.5 million spectacle just down to Ramaphosa’s words. And those words, judging by his most recent Sona addresses, will put an elephant to sleep at a range of 100 metres…

Outa wants us to boycott Sona as a protest at the ANC’s mismanagement of the country; sadly most people don’t care enough to protest and will find plenty of better things to do instead of listening to Ramaphosa drone on and on. So, why is this?

Because, time and again, the promises flowing from the president’s mouth have turned out to be nothing less than hot air. Smart city outside Johannesburg? Really? High-speed rail networks? Show us…

It goes without saying that few of the “challenges” that the ANC is tackling every day – with a straight face because they are the cause of them – are going to be resolved.

Ramaphosa will try to paint high-flown fantasies of development but, with crumbling infrastructure, corruption and inefficiency rampant across our country, we have already lost our competitive edge and other African countries are already eating our proverbial lunch.

What we need to hear tonight is a frank acknowledgement of just how dire our situation is – and not facile claims of progress intended to burnish the image of the ruling party ahead of the general election.

Our nation is in a state, Mr President. And what we, as citizens, want now is less blah, blah, blah and more build, build, build.