Mixed feelings about upcoming Sona

POLITICAL parties have expressed mixed feelings about the State of the Nation Address (Sona) by President Cyril Ramaphosa on Thursday, with many raising concerns about growing unemployment in the country.

Cope national spokesperson Dennis Bloem said his party was expecting nothing positive to come out of the address, saying South Africa was in “serious trouble about the growing levels of unemployment”.

“We are in a political and economic crisis, but Ramaphosa is concentrating on his party's internal issues rather than leading the country. The unemployment issue is a ticking time bomb. It can explode any time if not addressed.

“President Ramaphosa has contacts in the private sector. He must team up with them to address this unemployment crisis.

“There is also another crisis of safety and security in the country. We no longer have intelligence services that could have prevented the fire in Parliament, attacks at the Constitutional Court, and the fire at Queenstown City Hall last week.

“All [these] are the hallmarks of a country with no safety and security,” Bloem said

UDM leader Bantu Holomisa is not looking forward to Sona. “I don’t expect anything,” he said.

Holomisa said he was more concerned about the Budget speech, to be delivered by Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana almost a fortnight after Sona. “We want to know what will be contained in the Budget speech. We want to know how we move forward financially, especially after the recent floods.

“I don’t expect anything from Sona. We know the position of Cyril Ramaphosa about the Zondo commission and the state of vaccination in the country. There will be nothing new,” he said.

Similar views were expressed by Freedom Front Plus leader Pieter Groenewald, who said the nation would be “subjected to the same old story on Thursday”.

He said Ramaphosa would elaborate on job creation and growing the economy, but little at all on action.

“There is no practical implementation of a plan to create jobs in the country. They must create a conducive environment for the private sector to create jobs and lower the rate of unemployment in the country.

“I also wonder whether he is really going to prosecute those implicated in the Zondo commission. He needs to take drastic action against all of them, but I doubt it because he wants to be re-elected at his party’s conference at the end of the year. There is complacency from the side of the president.”

“The president will again speak about gender-based violence, that he had enacted pieces of legislation to curb the violence against women and children.

“I maintain that the real victims are women and children. The country has a DNA backlog. Women and children wait for longer for results to enable their cases to be prosecuted. While we expect swift prosecution, the government then cuts the police’s budget,” he said.

Like fellow opposition party members, ACDP leader Kenneth Meshoe was equally less optimistic about Sona.

“I don’t expect anything except a repeat of old promises made to the people and not delivered. I am also interested to know how they intend to repay the loans they’ve been receiving, or are they just leaving debt for our children.

“The unemployment rate in our country is heartbreaking. It is a ticking time bomb. We are now at this stage that anything can happen,” he said.

Meshoe said more people were likely to lose their jobs if the government goes ahead with the mandatory vaccination of people in their workplaces.