Cape Town: In just a few hours, President Cyril Ramaphosa will deliver the State of the Nation Address (SONA) which will provide a country roadmap charting the way forward for the country in what one could call a mixed bag of domestic and global circumstances.
According to South African Government News Agency, Thursday night will mark the first SONA to be delivered under the seventh administration’s Government of National Unity (GNU) following the outcomes of the historic 29 May 2024 elections. And while the faces of government Ministers have changed with every administration, the SONA, held every year since the dawn of democratic South Africa in 1994, continues to hold strong and is a reflection of democracy in action, no matter who is in the driver’s seat of the sitting government of the day.
The State of the Nation Address (SONA) is an important fixture in the nation’s journey forward and provides the President with an opportunity to hold perhaps the year’s ‘biggest family meeting,’ outlining the key plans and programmes of the year ahead. The address also affords the President the chance to look into the rearview mirror to assess the journey traversed to date.
As the President fine-tunes his notes before delivering the speech in an environment that changes by the second, government is cognisant that in every family unit, every member has a role to play in ensuring and preserving the family name and that it has to do so by ensuring the provision of services and responding to challenges facing the South African family. This as government continues to respond to the challenges of poverty, inequality, unemployment and illegal mining among others.
‘As much as we have made progress, we have to do much more to overcome the challenges that confront our nation. We need to work with urgency and purpose to grow an inclusive economy and create jobs,’ the President said in his New Year’s Eve message to the nation in December 2024. In that address, he called on the nation to look at the year 2025 with hope.
At tomorrow night’s joint sitting of the National Assembly and the National Council of Provinces (NCOP) in Parliament, the President is expected to speak on the country’s hosting of the Group of 20 (G20) Summit in November, making the country the first to do so on the African continent. This as the nation assumed the Presidency of the grouping on 1 December 2024 under the theme: ‘Solidarity, Equality, Sustainability’.
President Ramaphosa is likely to also reflect on the performance of the economy in an environment where the rising cost of living has many on edge. However, the prospects of South Africa’s purse strings are predicted to improve with the country in 2024 having achieved its first primary budget surplus in 15 years.
In the past year, government has passed laws that aim to improve lives as well as respond to pressing challenges. In January this year, the President signed into law the Expropriation Bill, which sets out how organs of State may expropriate land in the public interest for varied reasons.
In a move to ensure the safety of citizens, the South African Police Service (SAPS) trained and deployed over 20 000 new constables in various units across the country in the past three years. In addition, operations like Operation Shanela continue to make strides since its inception in May 2023.
While the country suffered a bout of Stage 3 load shedding recently, November 2024 marked the longest stretch of no-load shedding in five years. Eskom marked the longest stretch of uninterrupted power supply in five years, with load shedding suspended for more than 240 consecutive days at the time, which was followed by 300 days of no-load shedding on 21 January 2025.
South Africa in 2024 continued its work on the application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide in Gaza (South Africa v. Israel) matter. This as it said that it had no regrets about becoming the first country to file a lawsuit against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to end its ‘deadly and relentless genocidal bombardment’ of Gaza.
As the larger South African family, let us gather around our television and radio sets to hear what the President has to say. The SONA will get underway at 7pm on Thursday, 6 February 2025.