ANC chief whip: EFF 'childish' for SONA disruption threats
ANC chief whip Pemmy Majodina hopes President Cyril Ramaphosa is not interrupted during his SONA, after EFF leader, Julius Malema claimed his party would disrupt proceedings if the President does not fire Public Enterprises Minister, Pravin Gordhan.
She was speaking at the National Assembly ahead of this evening's State of the Nation Address where Ramaphosa will officially open Parliament in Cape Town.
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"What type of a leader will say 'as Ramaphosa speaks, I will speak', I mean that on its own tells you that you have people who are very childish, people who are not interested in taking the country forward and we cannot allow that. The presiding officers must deal in accordance to the rule and keep the decorum of the House."
Majodina says President Cyril Ramaphosa has the full support of the governing party.
"His failure is our failure as the ANC, his successes are our successes and therefore until now and the next conference his is our president and we must rally behind him. Whatever priorities that he is going to out there, they were discussed by the NEC."
There’s been mixed reaction from South Africans ahead of the State of the Nation Address.
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Ramaphosa is expected to address a range of pertinent issues including the status of embattled state-owned enterprises, Eskom and SAA as well as the country’s unemployment rate.
Sthe Shabalala, an unemployed graduate, believes the country is still facing the same issues it was last year.
"I don't think there's anything different that our President is going to say this year. We're still having the same issues we had last year. We're still having issues with corruption. Let's give him the benefit of the doubt. Hopefully he is going to say something, and he's going to do it."
IT Technician, Mlando Ndlovu, says the ruling party needs to do more for people living in rural areas.
"The ruling party has been following up to their commitments but have not done any work for people in the communities to better their living situations. Ramaphosa as the President, has not done much change."
A 24-year-old Durban based, e-hailer driver says he doesn’t expect any drastic changes to be made after the speech.
"We take every day day-by-day, there's nothing new or nothing old in this country. Make equal jobs opportunities for everyone. There's a whole lot of people that are unemployed. If he can provide jobs for people, then not so many people will be homeless."
