Mashaba urges economic relief ahead of Sona

ACTIONSA leader Herman Mashaba says President Cyril Ramaphosa should focus on providing details for economic relief ahead of the State of the Nation Address on Thursday.

Mashaba gave his own, alternative address yesterday, adding the country was bound to experience further waves of the pandemic due to a lack of proper action on vaccinations.

“We need to procure enough doses of the vaccine, manage its distribution effectively, and vaccinate enough of our people. Until then, we will be subjected to a third, a fourth and probably a fifth wave of infections, further overwhelming our health facilities and causing many preventable deaths,” he said.

Similar calls were echoed by DA leader John Steenhuisen on Monday, during his party’s pre-emptive Sona address.

Calls by opposition political parties are growing for the government to provide South Africans with a detailed vaccine plan.

This is despite Health Minister Dr Zweli Mkhize saying that SA would still be pursuing the first phase of its vaccination drive aimed at vaccinating health-care workers, even amid the debacle surrounding the Astrazeneca vaccine, of which the country had already procured 1 million doses.

Mashaba, meanwhile, criticised the government for what he believes is a poor handling of the pandemic, saying they were concerned with issues such as cigarettes instead of procuring much-needed health-care services.

“While we were in lockdown, businesses closing and over 2.8 million jobs lost, the ANC government failed to honour those sacrifices.

“Instead, our people continue to suffer, and ANC cadres continue looting and getting rich.

“While our government was focusing on alcohol, cigarettes and opentoed shoes, other governments were getting in line ahead of us to procure the vaccine.

“Covid-19 offers yet another opportunity to put into even sharper focus what we already knew: that our country cannot succeed if the ANC remains in power," Mashaba said.

He said Ramaphosa had to focus on fixing the economy in his speech. The businessman said the Cabinet needed to be reduced, struggling state-owned enterprises should be fixed or let go of, and bailouts to SAA should be stopped.

Urgent economic relief was needed, Mashaba said.

“First, the government’s budget must be cut to the bone. It must start with the president showing leadership, reducing his Cabinet and every government department.

“All the ridiculous non-essentials must be cut, and more funds redirected to providing economic relief and tax cuts to citizens and their businesses.

“Unprofitable and unstable SOES must either be turned around or go. We cannot continue rescuing financial black holes like SAA,” he said.

Mashaba, whose party plans to contest this year’s local government elections, said coalitions were the trend for the future and that the ultimate solution was to remove the ANC in as many local municipalities as possible.

Mashaba, the former mayor of Joburg, pointed to his work in the city as proof that local governments could work under a coalition government.

“While this project must unseat the ANC in 2024, it must begin with unseating the ANC in this year’s local government elections. That is why we have written to the leaders of likeminded opposition parties to propose a multiparty platform to establish common ground in our mutual objective of unseating the ANC.”