Economist says Ramaphosa hasn't lived up to promises of previous SONA
As President Cyril Ramaphosa prepares his speech for tomorrow’s opening of Parliament, an economist says he hasn’t lived up to the promises he made last year.
The coronavirus pandemic, the measures government is taking and specific details about the vaccine rollout are expected to be prominent in his State of the Nation Address.
During last year’s SONA, Ramaphosa said the government would work on resolving the issues at Eskom and other SOEs.
He also spoke about growing the economy, dealing with youth unemployment and rooting out corruption in government.
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But Chief Economist at the Efficient Group, Dawie Roodt, says there hasn’t been much progress. "I don't think the government has made much of headway on things like for example, education which is horrible.
He says as far as electricity is concerned, he believes the president should at least be partially be held accountable personally for the state of the country's electricity.
"When he was deputy president he was personally responsible. If you don't have electricity you can't grow the economy. So the reality is we have a government that is doing very little to get this economy growing and whenever they are involved and start doing stuff, it's usually associated with corruption or incompetence."
The Durban Chamber of Commerce hopes the President will address the city's port issues tomorrow night.
CEO, Palesa Phili says they’ve raised concerns over the port's inefficiencies, but nothing has changed. "We would like the president to address what is the government doing about issues around ensuring the port of Durban works in the insufficiencies are sorted.
She says for the last two years they received plans and actions that were being done but not much has really changed as the issues are still there.
"We would really like the president to address this and ensure that it is resolved urgently," she adds.
