Cape Town – President Cyril Ramaphosa is set to deliver the State of the Nation Address (SONA) on Thursday evening where he will be setting out government’s key priorities.
This would be Ramaphosa’s sixth SONA since he took over from former president Jacob Zuma.
Ramaphosa will deliver the annual event from an alternative venue, the City Hall in Cape Town, after fire gutted the city’s National Assembly in January.
He would be expected to inspire confidence in his leadership, as his address comes on the back of security concerns, rampant corruption and fraud, rising unemployment and a strained fiscus.
EWN quoted political analyst Professor Richard Calland as saying that this year’s Sona would be very different for Ramaphosa, coming in the wake of the July riots, the fire at Parliament and the release of two state capture inquiry reports detailing the extent of the rot in government.
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“It’s a real test of his leadership. I think it’s probably one of the most important speeches of his life in terms of his political career. He’s faced many forks in the road – this is another one,” the report quoted Calland as saying.
Earlier this week, the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) said it expected Ramaphosa to “address the contentious issue of South African companies that are playing poor foreign workers against poor South African workers”.
According to The Citizen, Cosatu’s anticipation of the matter came amid frantic efforts by a number of political parties, including ActionSA, the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), and the African Transformation Movement (ATM), to fight for locals to be given preferential treatment in jobs.
Cosatu’s parliamentary co-ordinator Matthew Parks said that the country already had laws in place to monitor foreign worker employment.
“So it speaks to that a company must at least employ 60% of its staff from South African workers. If you hire migrant workers, then that skill must not be available locally and should provide proof that they have advertised the job and everyone who qualified applied,” EWN quoted Parks as saying.
ALSO READ | SA Parliament fire shifts State of the Nation Address to Cape Town City Hall
Meanwhile, Parliament Spokesperson Moloto Mothapo on Wednesday had to explain why the Sona budget had increased to over R2 million from the R1.9 million that had been initially set aside.
“We have consistently and progressively in fact over the past few years reduced the budget for SONA … initially it was about R8 million about 10 years ago, we have brought it gradually to R1.9 million. So last year before the fire, we had budgeted R1.9 million for the State of the Nation Address with the understanding that it would be taking place at the regular sitting of Parliament, said Mothapo, according to SABC.
Mothapo said that the change of venue brought with it new expenses.
“We had to spend on things that would ordinarily not spend on if we were in Parliament. Such as conferencing systems, video and audio service translation services, broadcasting services and those things don’t come cheap,” he said.
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Compiled by Betha Madhomnu
