As DA leader John Steenhuisen offered to help President Cyril Ramaphosa fire his cabinet, the EFF’s Julius Malema labelled him the worst head of state for black people during Monday’s debate on the state of the nation address (Sona).
Ramaphosa’s address was put to the sword by the opposition parties, with his message that business will create jobs while the government creates an enabling environment getting mixed reactions.
Steenhuisen accused Ramaphosa of having copied from the DA’s election manifesto ahead of delivering the Sona. “Large parts of the president’s speech are straight from the DA’s playbook,” said Steenhuisen. “Let’s be clear, that is a good thing.”
However, he said Ramaphosa’s plans would be hampered by his own political party and his cabinet. He announced that he was tabling a motion of no confidence against government ministers.
Steenhuisen praised Ramaphosa for putting business and the private sector at the centre of the country’s economic recovery plans.
“What remains unclear is which of these [Ramaphosa’s] views represent the real ANC. For almost three decades this government has done all it could to discourage job creation in the private sector with terrible, draconian labour laws,” he said.
He said the ANC had for almost three decades wrongly put the government at the centre of the country’s economic growth.
“Suddenly on Thursday night we hear a different story; what has changed? Mr President, you must have heard the analysts’ comments that you must have read the DA manifesto,” Steenhuisen said.
However, Malema accused Ramaphosa of having “destroyed the hopes of young South Africans” by stating in his address that it was not the role of the government to create jobs.
“These people who are looking for the government to rescue them out of poverty, you stood there and told them it will never happen... you came here and destroyed the hopes of the hopeless masses,” Malema said.
The EFF leader argued that the apartheid government had used state and government resources to create opportunities for poor whites and “almost completely eradicated joblessness and poverty among white people”.
“on Monday they say the government can’t create jobs, it must be the private sector, but we know that during apartheid they established state-owned institutions with the aim and purpose of employing white people, particularly the illiterate Afrikaners,” Malema said
He blamed the ANC government of having played a role in entrenching the status quo that has seen blacks remain poor while whites became richer.
“Sending our people to the private sector for jobs is like sending a cattle for slaughter. What we know about the private capitalist sector has never been and will never be about creating jobs,” Malema said.
IFP chief whip Narend Singh accused Ramaphosa of having failed to provide a single clear message of what is happening in SA and what’s to be done to address it.
Singh said a decision needed to be taken whether SA would be “a welfare or developmental state”.
The Freedom Front Plus’ Pieter Groenewald accused Ramaphosa of failing to deliver on his promises as, among others, unemployment had risen between 2018, when he became president, and 2022.
“We all know that the government doesn’t create jobs, we knew it all the time. The question is why do you say this now at this moment, you had four years to look at this situation,” Groenewald said.
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