President Cyril Ramaphosa delivered this year’s annual State of the Nation Address (SONA) with ease. Pressures that Ramaphosa will be disrupted by the EFF turned to be empty as he charmed the opposition immediately after setting foot on the podium on Thursday.
Transform SA picked 10 of the most pertinent issues that Ramaphosa raised during his SONA 2019:
“We have agreed with the new National Director of Public Prosecutions, that there is an urgent need to establish in the office of the NDPP an investigating directorate dealing with serious corruption and associated offences, in accordance with section 7 of the NPA Act. The Directorate will bring together a range of investigatory and prosecutorial capacity from within government and in the private sector under an investigating director reporting to the NDPP. ”
“An advisory panel of experts headed by Dr Vuyo Mahlathi, established to advise government on its land reform programme, is expected to table its report by the end of March 2019.”
“To restore proper corporate governance, new boards with credible, appropriately experienced and ethical directors, have been appointed at Eskom, Denel, Transnet, SAFCOL, PRASA and SA Express. We want our SOEs to be fully self-sufficient and be able to fulfil their development and economic role.”
“To bring credibility to the turnaround and to position South Africa’s power sector for the future, we shall immediately embark on a process of establishing three separate entities – Generation, Transmission and Distribution – under Eskom Holdings.”
“Over the next six years, we will provide every school child in South Africa with digital workbooks and textbooks on a tablet device.”
“The Housing Development Agency will construct an additional 500,000 housing units in the next five years, and an amount of R30 billion will be provided to municipalities and provinces to enable them to fulfil their respective mandates.”
“We have launched the Youth Employment Service #YES, which is placing unemployed youth in paid internships in companies across the economy.”
“The revelations emerging from the Zondo Commission of Inquiry into state capture and other commissions are deeply disturbing, for they reveal a breadth and depth of criminal wrongdoing that challenges the very foundation of our democratic state. Where there is a basis to prosecute, prosecutions must follow swiftly and stolen public funds must be recovered urgently.”
“In a few months’ time, South Africans will go to the polls for the sixth time in our democracy to vote for national and provincial governments. I have engaged with the Independent Electoral Commission and also with the Premiers of all provinces, and intend to proclaim the 8th of May 2019 as the date of the election.”
“As government, as business, as labour and as citizens, let us unite to embrace tomorrow. Let us grasp our collective future with both hands, in the immortal words of the Freedom Charter: side by side, sparing neither strength nor courage.”