Ramaphosa’s SA flawed…but so much better

At the risk of sounding like Cyril Ramaphosa groupies, we do feel some sympathy for him as he was trying to defend his record as president during the debate on the State Of the Nation Address (Sona) in parliament yesterday.

He seemed, if not angry, then at least a little touchy, that everyone commenting on his beginning of year speech had been laying into him.

Those prepared to look would clearly see, he said, the progress made in the five years since he took office after the resignation of Jacob Zuma. Those who couldn’t see that, he asserted, were blinded by their need to score political points.

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On the one hand, it is fair to wonder what else he expected, given the current situation in the country.

Load shedding is costing the economy billions of rands a day and, in turn, tens of thousands of jobs. Many are being driven to despair by rising prices, crime is still out of control and very few government departments or state-owned enterprises are functioning optimally.

It is probably also true that many South Africans – including us in the media – granted Ramaphosa a long honeymoon, because he seemed so different from Zuma and seemed earnest in his desire to put South Africa back on the path to greatness.

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Yet, on his watch, the country has manifestly, not been prospering – and no amount of blaming Covid or sundry global crises is going to change that.

Ramophosa has, however, made definite progress in tackling the culture of looting. It may be slower than most desire, but the state capture project was a massive evil hydra-headed thing which will take years to unravel.

He has also, again slowly, started to remove the more malign elements from exercising influence in the ANC. When we attack Ramaphosa, we need to remember from whence we come…

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