INSIGHT | Ramaphosa’s optimism amid SA’s challenges — hope for a new era

This year may feel like SA has so much to be grateful for, despite plenty of obstacles ahead as the country charts a new course.

That is only because successive governments over the past decade have done so little to implement decisions and promises seriously that many have forgotten what transformation under an accountable, responsive and open government looks like.

Overall, President Cyril Ramaphosa’s message to the nation in his 10th state of the nation address last Thursday carried optimism, observing that “We have turned a corner. We are leaving behind an era of decline,” and promising to move the needle forward on economic growth in many sectors of the economy.

In the past, the nation has been clear about what it does not want but divided over what it does after years of state capture, and faintly suspicious about any politician’s chances of achieving it.

What stood out this year is the developing sense that the government is getting closer to implementing a coherent vision for fighting poverty, unemployment, inequality, crime, and climate change, even if it does so using a sketch strategy for getting there.

In this climate, the risk has always been that even moves in the right direction — such as establishing commissions and committees to deal with our battered criminal justice system, economic stagnation, the escalating water crisis, and gender-based violence — still come across as ad hoc opportunity-grabs rather than principled efforts to position SA as an attractive investment destination, run by an efficient, accountable, responsive and open government.

For a government that is supposedly focusing on achieving economic growth, the speech sounds closer to the realisation that our poverty and unemployment problems are part of SA’s poor economic growth and poor governance problem, and that we need redoubled collaborative efforts to implement policies and promises to fix the nation — not just small changes or more bolt-ons.

Identifiable and shared GNU values featured prominently in the speech, not shying away from affirming the political centre.

What some may disagree with is the president’s framing of the GNU not as a political compromise, but as a constitutional duty rooted in dignity, equality, non-racialism and non-sexism.

After a tumultuous run-up to a make-or-break moment after another calendar year for the government, the president seems to have struck the right balance, quick to praise the GNU, confirming that the economy is gaining momentum, while also warning that progress will collapse without unity, discipline and mutual respect.

In its unfiltered state, the country is emblematic of GNU weaknesses that dominated most of last year.

It is mired with missed opportunities to meaningfully involve social partners in crucial decisions.

SA is not short of challenges. Many have criticised the government for allowing weeks of run-in with scare stories about delays in dealing with the FMD outbreak.

The delays stopped some businesses from offering new jobs and committing to new investments.

Many will appreciate this speech for correctly highlighting how the GNU is beginning to stabilise an economy battered by years of stagnation, rolling power cuts and investor doubt.

“The strength of this nation comes from our people ... from our tolerance, our generosity, our solidarity.”

I find that a soothing tone to boost our morale and offload our anxiety.

Take Ramaphosa’s consolation to the nation when he said it is in a stronger position, economically, than it was a year ago.

He cited growth and rhetoric around reforms.

He alluded to GDP growth, projected to reach the 1% mark for the first time in years.

He underscored that our country needs determination, will and clarity of purpose from our political leaders to deliver an economy that works for all of us, not just those in the formal economy.

He acknowledged that while SA experienced four consecutive quarters of GDP growth in 2025, the government must now redouble its efforts to ensure the economy achieves stronger growth.

This lack of ambition on GDP growth projections does not meet the needs of the moment to align policies, legislation, and bold action at national, provincial, and local governments.

Instead, it shifts yet more pressure onto everyone else outside government and in the informal sector to do the heavy lifting.

While he alluded to the improvement in the country’s credit rating by Standard & Poor’s, achieving the lowest annual average CPI since 2004, and its removal from the Financial Action Task Force grey list as indications that better days lie ahead for the economy, he said little to connect that to the sorry state of household credit rating.

Instead, he went on to say the country is on a clear path to stabilising its national debt, a trend that finance minister Enoch Godongwana is sure to expand on when he tables the 2026 budget later this month.

Previous speeches acknowledged the insecurity marring so many lives, locked out of active economic participation by debt and unemployment, yet little was done about it.

Ramaphosa’s answer to this gap is, correctly, as much economic as political.

He is banking on growth not just as a means to fund better public services but effectively to glue society back together again, recognising that prosperous, confident countries don’t descend into the same dark places as impoverished ones fighting over scraps.

That is what I understand him to mean when he said, “We must fix local government. We must fight crime and corruption and restore trust in the criminal justice system.

“We must create jobs and livelihoods for every South African. And we must build a state that works for the people”.

Outside government, the need for improvements and multi-stakeholder cooperation is universally accepted and there is remarkable agreement over how to remove blockages in key areas of the economy.

In the national debate, inside and outside parliament, we must focus on why previous governments failed to deliver despite this consensus and on how each social sector must do things differently this year.

It will be wise to start thinking and acting on this now to avoid missing crucial opportunities on many fronts.

A GNU now and then, with Sona pronouncements, reminds us there is a better SA that can do good.

Often not enough, not brave or radical enough.

But this time there is hope that, while not enough to guarantee that Ramaphosa’s leadership will help reverse the country’s desperate political misfortunes, it should at least remind people who have lost trust what coalition governments are for.

Daily Dispatch