President Cyril Ramaphosa delivered the State of the Nation Address on Tuesday night. Picture: Armand Hough Independent Newspapers
Service delivery issues were high on the agenda during the State of the Nation address last night with President Cyril Ramaphosa acknowledging that in many cities and towns across the country, “roads are not maintained, water and electricity supply is often disrupted, refuse is not collected and sewage runs in the streets”.
Delivering his first State of the Nation Address (Sona) after the establishment of the Government of National Unity (GNU), Ramaphosa also said that the country is facing a water crisis.
Against the backdrop of these persistent service delivery challenges, the president outlined an ambitious medium-term strategy aimed at revitalising the nation’s fragmented service systems.
During his address, Ramaphosa highlighted three key areas of focus that the government intends to prioritise: inclusive economic growth, reduction of poverty, and building a capable state. These objectives reflect an urgent call for action amidst the increasing frustrations of citizens struggling with inadequate public services.
Ramaphosa acknowledged that many municipalities lack technical skills and fail to invest their revenues accordingly.
“Starting this year, we will work with our municipalities to establish professionally managed, ring-fenced utilities for water and electricity services to ensure that there is adequate investment and maintenance.
“Many of the challenges in municipalities arise from the design of our local government system. We will therefore undertake extensive consultation to develop an updated White Paper on Local Government to outline a modern and fit-for-purpose local government system.
“We will review the funding model for municipalities as many of them do not have a viable and sustainable revenue base.”
He added that the government will draw on the lessons of the Presidential eThekwini Working Group.
“We are seeing great progress in eThekwini as we implement the district development model, which enables all key role players as in government, business, labour and community-based organisations to work together.”
On the country’s water crisis, he said there would be “decisive actions” to resolve it, adding that the Infrastructure Fund had secured R23 billion for seven large water infrastructure projects.
“We have ended delays in major water infrastructure projects like Phase 2 of the Lesotho Highlands Water Project and the uMkhomazi Dam.”
Reacting to Ramaphosa’s promises, Unisa Professor, Richard Meissner, a water and local government expert, indicated that service delivery is skewed with rural parts of the country receiving little to no service delivery.
“Currently, service delivery is not on par but not everywhere in the country. There are places where service delivery functions better than in other areas.
“We can expect reform of acts like the Municipal Structures Act (MSA) and the Municipal Finance Management Act (MFMA). That traditional leaders will be consulted is also promising, because across large parts of rural areas, they have political authority and it is usually in these areas where service delivery is lacking more so than in urban areas,” he stated.
Ramaphosa also announced that there will be a week of mourning for the 14 SANDF soldiers killed in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
He said the country’s flag will be flown at half mast in honour of the soldiers.
“They lost their lives, not in the pursuit of resources of power. They lost their lives so that guns on our continent may be forever silenced. So we salute them,” Ramaphosa said.
The soldiers’ bodies were due to be repatriated to South Africa on Wednesday. However, the SANDF yesterday said that all administrative processes were completed and handed over to the UN.
“The United Nations planned movement for the repatriation of the deceased out of the combat zone has been delayed,” explained SANDF head of communications, Siphiwe Dlamini.
Ramaphosa also spoke on international relations amid the recent tensions with Rwanda over the DRC conflict and with the US over the Expropriation Act.
He said the country would not be bullied.
“We are a resilient people. We will not be bullied. We will stand together as a united nation. We will speak with one voice in defence of our national interest, our sovereignty and our constitutional democracy.”
Speaking on the country’s G20 Presidency, Ramaphosa said it was an opportunity for South Africa to advance efforts towards greater global economic growth and sustainable development.
He said in a bid to explain the country’s positions on various matters and the objectives it wished to achieve during the G20 Presidency, a delegation of government and other leaders would be sent to various capitals on our continent and across the world.
“This delegation will interact with various key players on a variety of matters that affect South Africa’s interests.”
Regarding unemployment, Ramaphosa said South Africa’s GDP growth must reach 3%.
He said to boost economic growth, government will spend more than R940bn on infrastructure over the next three years. This includes R375bn in spending by state-owned companies.
However, opposition political parties poured cold water on Ramaphosa’s speech with the EFF’s Julius Malema saying the president was not a person who followed through with his promises, which were vague and lacked detail.