On February 16 2018 — two days after he became SA president — Cyril Ramaphosa said in his first state of the nation address: “This year, we will be initiating measures to set the country on a new path of growth, employment and transformation. We will do this by getting social partners in our country to collaborate in building a social compact on which we will create drivers of economic recovery”.
He talked about the elusive social compact in each of his next four state of the nation addresses in 2019-21. In the 2022 address he said: “We have given ourselves 100 days to finalise a comprehensive social compact to grow our economy, create jobs and combat hunger. To be effective this social compact needs to include every South African and every part of society.” The government then published a disgrace of a document — a framework for a social compact in SA that read like the work of an intern.
At the memorial for former ANC deputy secretary-general Jessie Duarte in July 2022 former president Thabo Mbeki got impatient and reminded mourners that Ramaphosa had said there would be a social compact in 100 days but that nothing had happened: “There is no national plan to address these challenges of poverty, unemployment, inequality. It does not exist.”
After spending 90 minutes with him soon afterwards, it was clear how passionate he was on the issue. I wrote on this page that the government was so clueless it should ask Mbeki to develop a social compact. Seven years after Ramaphosa first talked about the need for a social compact, there is still no plan. There have been no stakeholder meetings or activities to develop a social compact.
We can only speculate why a president who made this his signature pledge has done nothing to achieve it. Or why someone would want to be SA president for so long and not have a plan for the economy when he ticks it off his bucket list. Over the past few years Mbeki has championed the need for a national dialogue to develop a compact and mobilised the foundations of struggle icons and former president FW De Klerk towards the cause. A week ago he gave me his analysis of SA’s economic challenges.
In his 2025 state of the nation address Ramaphosa called for a national dialogue, but nothing happened until two weeks ago, when he said: “It is an opportunity to forge a new social compact for the development of our country, a compact that will unite all South Africans, with clear responsibilities for different stakeholders.” I sense a hesitancy from the presidency about the process, possibly because it will become a referendum on Ramaphosa’s dismal economic record during “seven wasted years”.
Annual average GDP growth during former president Jacob Zuma’s “nine wasted years” was four times higher. Like the Zondo commission, there will be budget overruns and delays. The Ramaphosa presidency and the government of neoliberal unity will not last their full terms, but we do not know which will unravel first. In the meantime there will be low GDP growth and soaring unemployment as the Treasury chases larger primary budget surpluses and the Reserve Bank targets 3% inflation.
The dialogue will be like a distraction to pacify a restless, rebellious and polarised nation. With Ramaphosa on his way out at some stage, there will be no social compact when he eventually departs. But I am scared because deputy president Paul Mashatile also has no clue what he will do to get the economy out of its worst post-apartheid crisis if he becomes president.
• Gqubule is an adviser on economic development and transformation.
Would you like to comment on this article?
Sign up (it's quick and free) or sign in now.
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.