While Sona 2022 was the longest State of the Nation Address to date and lauded as the most detailed thus far, there is something else worth remembering and reflecting on.
It is that, as Tessa Dooms put it, for the first time, a whole president brought much-needed attention to the informal economy.
We should rally the nation to a better appreciation of informality and the prospects it holds for socioeconomic transformation and the empowerment of many.
Indeed it is the story of a man said to have saved up tranches of the R350 relief grant to start an ice-cream shop that set social media streets alight soon after Sona, followed by a few written responses from mainstream media with attempts to set the record straight.
Whatever version of Thando Makhubu’s story we choose to latch onto, he is a hero and the kind of resilient South African we ought to celebrate in the everyday.
In a country with triple ills of poverty, unemployment and inequality and where small businesses are seen as would-be drivers of job creation and sustainable economic growth, stories of people like this draws us closer to the real-life stories of the active citizenry this government ought to serve.
His story should trigger a necessary reflection on how our nation will evolve an enabling policy arsenal for a more inclusive and transformed socioeconomic future through better understanding of informality and to bolster the informal economy.
There is something else that Sona 22 must urgently help us to change. It is how our society contends with the myriad challenges facing young people. An opportunity lies to make the youth portfolio at the presidency see more in our youth, to unlock more.
There was a lot left out of the address and in hindsight that may be a good thing. It is a chance for us to challenge both individual and collective imagination.
There was not much on the tourism sector for instance and this is a sector of huge potential for scores of unemployed youth. Tourism is also among the bouquet of sectors we are exploring as emerging economies in the Black Management Forum (BMF).
The tourism sector is SA’s portal to the green economy, blue economy, creative economy, agricultural sector, automotive sector and what is encapsulated in the term Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR).
Our talented, resilient, creative and entrepreneurial youth are the agents of change we need to unlock this massive sector potential. While many of them have given up the search for work, there are many who are qualified and desperately in need of a foot in the door as socioeconomic actors in pursuit of prosperous futures.
The public employment schemes and the presidential employment initiative, for which R19bn has been set aside over a three-year period, are important resources to empower SA's young talent.
But these will only be effective if we move beyond the industrial mode of keeping people busy on meaningless tasks between 8am and 4pm. Covid-19 should have by now taught us that being at an office for eight hours does not equate to eight hours of productivity and meaningful work for reigniting growth in our battered economy.
It is also important to note that recent trends in semigration demonstrate new possibilities for economic futures even for those outside the traditional centres of our economy.
While transformation laws and empowerment programmes have for the past three decades been heavily concentrated in finance, minerals and energy that keep SA inequality intact, the next decade will require that we radically diversify our focus to the emerging economies.
It must be our youth who are prioritised in efforts to unlock value and prosperity in those sectors. If not because they are the highest number of South Africans out of work, let it be because they are among the first or second generations in their families to see the corridors of higher education and training.
They are better placed than many to grapple with the complexity of the multiple transitions under way. According to the SA Cultural Observatory’s 4IR report, 60% of the jobs we will need by 2030 have not been invented yet.
While President Cyril Ramaphosa called for South Africans to "send him" in the year that Bra Hugh Masekela died, he must remember that it is unheard of in African culture for young people to send an elder. It may be for that reason that our youth are languishing in waithood, some with mental illness and others resorting to substance abuse. It may be because the nation is sending elders to do the work of young women and men.
And so we must call to the president and say, Mongameli, sithume nathi! Rest Bafethu! Thuma thina through the presidential economic stimulus programme and the various employment schemes linked to it, to ignite informal enterprises in our neighborhoods and on digital platforms that will help us reach a global market.
If Soweto Creamery could be born out of saving R350 grants, imagine what else we could do with an effective grant-making regime to service the Africa Free Trade Area now open.
Imagine what we could do for the Brics and other markets in the Global South.
Any society with a long-term vision for its future knows that such tasks can only be attained through the generational mission upon which they empower their youth to embark upon. For that reason, as we, celebrating the 10-year anniversary of the BMF Young Professionals this year, ought to say after Sona 2022, Mongameli thuma thina!
• Mnqandi is national chairperson of the Black Management Forum’s Young Professionals
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