ANC president Cyril Ramaphosa on Sunday promised sweeping initiatives and interventions in a bid to restore public confidence in the beleaguered party’s ability to govern, as well as the revival of the party itself ahead of the 2024 national and provincial elections.
He was addressing thousands of ANC members at the Petrus Molema Stadium in Mangaung, while delivering the party’s January 8 statement. The annual statement marks the anniversary of the ANC’s founding — its 111th this year.
But his speech was met with scepticism from analysts, who pointed out that it was long on promises and short on workable plans to fulfil them.
Working through a shopping list of key social and economic reforms and service delivery concerns at the core of the nation’s discontent, Ramaphosa addressed the need to relax red tape to promote economic revival; address the “national crisis” of youth unemployment; expedite land reform, including expropriation without compensation where necessary; increase policing; and deal harshly with crime and gender-based violence.
He also vowed to end the energy crisis crippling SA’s economy, with rolling blackouts now fluctuating between stages 3 and 4 daily.
Drastic steps
He said the government will accelerate the work already under way to end the crisis as the shortage of electricity is one of the greatest impediments to the country’s economic recovery. Drastic steps will be taken to end sabotage and illegal connections at power stations.
“We need to pursue with greater focus and purpose the measures we have already announced and agreed to reduce the frequency and the severity of load-shedding and ultimately to end it.
“We must return Eskom’s generation capacity to a reliable service as quickly as possible by undertaking critical maintenance and ensuring that power stations have skilled and experienced personnel.”
He said the short-term measures will accelerate the implementation of the government’s Integrated Resource Plan, which includes the procurement of more than 18,000MW of generation capacity.
“At the same time, the ANC directs government to secure additional power in the short term by leveraging surplus capacity from existing generators and being able to procure additional power on an emergency basis. We must be able to go and buy energy on an emergency basis to close the gap.
“We need to urgently upgrade Eskom’s network to bring new generation capacity. We have resolved also to reduce our carbon emissions, but we are also saying there must be a just transition that takes into account the welfare of workers’ communities and the industries that are affected,” he said.
Announcing sweeping interventions to restore faith in the ANC, he reaffirmed the party’s step-aside rule to stamp out corruption; an overhaul of the alliance between the ANC, Cosatu and the SA Communist Party; and a determined drive to register young voters to secure the ANC’s future as the governing party.
Those fingered in the Zondo commission of inquiry into state capture “will face the full might of the law”, he said.
On the priority of economic regeneration and job creation, he said the task is to ensure that South Africans share in the economy, and now more than ever “we need to build a social compact to lift overall investment and to create a new inclusive economy”.
Crime and corruption
On crime and corruption, the plan is to make sure that the country is secure and stable.
“We will therefore take steps to further strengthen the law enforcement agencies and improve citizen involvement in the urgent work of restoring peace and stability and we call on our people to partner with the police to create safer and more secure communities through effective and well-resourced community policing forums and community patrollers.”
A national plan of action will be rolled out to deal with kidnapping, extortion at construction sites and vandalism of public infrastructure. “We will not allow criminals to run havoc in our country. We will not allow them space. We are now going to take them on head to head, toe to toe. If you are criminals, we are coming after you.”
Analysts said that the speech ticked all the right boxes and there were no surprises.
“He definitely appeared a lot more confident and relaxed. However, it was a predictable script and similar to the sentiments Ramaphosa expressed at the closing of the ANC’s national elective conference in December 2022, where he won a landslide victory as ANC president,” said a policy expert at the Institute for Global Dialogue, Sanusha Naidu.
“The issue of renewal of the party, touching on unemployment, BEE, electricity, load-shedding, violence and crime. [It’s a speech] that tells us what is to be done but without a road map or the ‘how’,” Naidu said.
Political analyst Fikile Vilikazi said the address failed to give the people of SA hope. “There was a lot of repetition of what he has pronounced before. More promises with little substance on implementation.
“[It] was a celebration of the party’s anniversary yet no proper direction or master plan on how the policies will translate into reality.”
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