Cyril channels spirit of Madiba

One could almost feel the spirit of Nelson Mandela stirring in the chamber of the National Assembly yesterday as the new president, Cyril Ramaphosa, promised to take South Africa back to that future which was Madiba’s vision.

In Ramaphosa’s South Africa, the ANC government has committed itself to working with all its people, and with business, to build a place South Africans will be proud to call home.

Ramaphosa will have to undo the serious damage of the Jacob Zuma years. He promised to root out corruption and restore confidence in government.

He will also have to heal the racial wounds which were deepened during the Zuma era.

He made a notable start in the State Of the Nation address yesterday, making part of his speech in Afrikaans and vowing that no person should be prevented from achieving their potential because of skin colour.

And there were plenty of concrete commitments and even timelines.

He announced a new national minimum wage which, he said, would improve the lives of six million people, and pledged to accelerate land redistribution, including expropriation without compensation.

Other commitments included creating one million internships for young people over the next three years, as well as improvements to the system of support for poor and unemployed people.

In many ways, Ramaphosa’s brave new world can be regarded as impossibly ambitious because it covers so many areas and makes so many radical proposals.

But the time is right. Change is upon us. As Ramaphosa said, change can be negative, but it can offer us a chance for renewal … we did it before and we can do it again.

We owe it to Madiba.

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