No more empty promises, it’s time Ramaphosa acts

It seems like a lifetime ago, yet it was just four years ago, that Cyril Ramaphosa stood before us as president, using his State Of the NationAddress (Sona) to paint a glowing, optimistic picture of the “new dawn” after the dark period of state capture.

We believed him. We desperately needed something, or someone, to believe in; a messiah who could offer South Africa a shot at redemption. It doesn’t take long to list some of Ramaphosa’s promises which were never realised.
He promised to “initiate a process to review the configuration, number and size of national government departments.” Nothing’s come of that.

“We will intervene decisively to stabilise and revitalise SOEs.” Well, if you have, sir, there is not a lot of evidence of that. Those who stand in endless queues, waiting to be abused by “civil” servants, who seem unaccountable,
will perhaps have forgotten Ramaphosa’s promise to get “our public servants to adhere to the principle of Batho Pele, of putting our people first.”

Most ironic, to most thinking South Africans, would have been his pledge that 2018 would be “the year in which we will turn the tide of corruption in our public institutions” and his pledge that “thieves who are stealing public funds should be arrested and prosecuted”.

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How’s that working out, Chief? In Ramaphosa’s defence, he heads an organisation which has been described as a criminal enterprise and he constantly battles those loyal to former president Jacob Zuma, whose looting was interrupted.

Yet, even Ramaphosa’s own people have been accused of profiting from theft of Covid emergency money. So, excuse us if we don’t hold our breath in anticipation of him pulling rabbits out of the hat in Thursday’s 2022 Sona.

That many South Africans have almost given up on Ramaphosa is saddest of all.