The mess we are in… Gareth Stokes reflects on SONA 22

Every year we religiously cover key national events such as the State of the Nation Address, Budget Speech and Medium Term Budget Policy Statement, only to be left with that nagging feelings of déjà vu. You know of what I speak, dear reader… That prickling of the skin that comes from the countless ‘been here, done that, heard this before’ moments that go hand-in-hand with the ministerial and presidential fingers-crossed promises and half-truths you are forced to digest.

Distractions served as fact

The more you interrogate the content that government speechmakers serve up, the more you realise the extent of intentional distraction. There is an ongoing blurring of lines between fact and fiction and a conflation of issues that makes it difficult to make sense of things. The 2022 State of the Nation Address (SONA) is no different. It sets out to inform South Africa’s lowly voting fodder of the ruling class’ assessment of its performance, progress and shortcomings in the preceding year, and its promises for the next. PS, by admitting a shortcoming or two government shows how ‘in touch’ it is with its working class subjects; a trick that should not be confused with a genuine intent to remedy things. 

The latest SONA, which was beamed nationally at around 7pm on 10 February 2022, was a masterpiece of deflection and nation-building. In fact, the conflation of critical issues started in the very first paragraphs of President Cyril Ramaphosa’s speech. “For many, what happened [to] Parliament speaks to a broader devastation in our land,” he opened, referring to the devastating fire that recently tore through the Cape Town precinct. The fire was allegedly started by a homeless person, who rambled through this high security key point for no fewer than 30 hours, undetected. 

Beset by a ruling elite

Yes, we agreed enthusiastically, lulled for a moment into a ‘this time it’s different’ feeling. The torched Parliament precinct, we mused, symbolises a country that is beset by a ruling elite that does not give a stuff for its citizens. It is a sign of the ruthless lawlessness and unaccountability that afflicts our society from the ground up. And it signifies two or more decades of atrocious policy-making under a ruling elite that is more concerned with party matters than State. Alas, the President had an entirely different take. “The fire,” he said “was symbolic of the devastation caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, by rising unemployment and deepening poverty”. Within 30 seconds, the 2020/21 pandemic had been given up as among the root causes of the country’s current ills. 

More to the point, the President commented that the fire “reminded us of the destruction, violence and looting that we witnessed in parts of the country in July last year, of the more than 300 lives lost and many more livelihoods ruined”. Again, we concur, because both are acts of lawlessness; sabotage bordering on treason! The ‘razing to the ground’ of the Parliament building was a perfect proxy for the rioting and looting that played out in parts of Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal. Many FAnews readers were quite ‘close’ to this catastrophe, working as they do at the country’s insurance brokerages, insurers and reinsurers. And our readers know all too well of the impact of the resulting R32 billion insured losses on our state-owned special risks insurer, Sasria SOC Limited. 

The State’s role in civil commotion

We trawled the President’s 8000-plus word speech for an admission of the State’s contribution to the July 2021 debacle, without success. Instead we encountered a range of promises that have been repeated so many times over the past decades as to have lost all meaning. “We are taking steps to strengthen our democracy and reaffirm our commitment to a Constitution that protects us all,” said the President. “We are working together to revitalise our economy and end the inequality and injustice that impedes our progress”. Of course the evidence in support of the above comments remains thin. If anything, a brief glance at the status quo circa 2022 suggests that government’s initiatives are moving the country away from rather than towards its stated goals. 

The speech, as we intimated in the opening paragraphs, was full of the positioning that forward-thinking citizens loves to hear. “We are standing together against corruption and to ensure that those who are responsible for state capture are punished for their crimes,” noted the President. Are we really? asks the writer. “We have been taking extraordinary measures to enable businesses to grow and create jobs alongside expanded public employment and social protection,” he said. Have we now?  It is worth noting that SONA heaped praise and support on the South African Revenue Service (SARS). And why not! A strong SARS is essential in extracting the trillions of rand in taxpayer funding necessary to carry out government’s grand plans. 

The trap of applaudable rhetoric

How could we not applaud the ‘government must work for the people’ tone that SONA 22 proffered? Yes! We want government to work for us. Yet after almost 30 years in power, government will only “soon be finalising a framework for the professionalisation of the public service”. What? Why on earth has this professionalism not been in place for decades? Lifestyle audits were also trotted out again; but these have been mentioned innumerable times over the past years with absolutely no effect. Case in point, it was the media and whistle blowers that laid bare the machinery of State Capture rather than government introspection. 

The multi-year, multi-billion rand commission of enquiry that followed has yet to result in significant prosecutorial action, and this writer fears it never will. We have to date seen only limited steps at employer level and absolutely nothing from the apparently hamstrung National Prosecuting Authority. Apologies, dear reader, for this rant, but am I the only person who finds suspension with full pay, or a quiet resignation on full benefits as inadequate punishment for criminal wrongdoing that involves death of the innocent or theft from the poor? 

The President made many, many references to the triple threat of inequality, poverty and unemployment! We appreciate the acknowledgement that “unemployment had been caused by low growth, which in turn resulted from a long-term decline in investment”. Now, why, we wondered have foreign investors abandoned our shores in droves over the past decades? All government needs to do is identify the many, many obstacles that contribute to this investor reticence and dismantle them… This should be easy enough, given that almost 100% of these obstacles were put in place by government to begin with! Yet the best the President can muster is “fundamental reforms are needed to revive economic growth”. Déjà vu, anybody? 

Issues as old as the nation itself

The high cost of doing business in South Africa, inefficient network industries and unreliable electricity supply were singled out by SONA 22 as real and immediate issues… But honestly, how does government inspire confidence when each of these issues has been referred to on multiple occasions over multiple decades? The electricity constraint, now exhaustively unpacked, has been in our faces for more than 30 years. So when our President tiredly explains that “companies are reluctant to invest and the economy cannot function properly” due to electricity supply issues; inefficient ports and railways; scarcity of broadband spectrum; and deteriorating water quality, we must confess to being confused. These issues are usually caused or contributed to by the blatant bungling of one or other deployed minister, who the President may fire and replace at will. 

The President offered up a number of short-term projects to remedy the Eskom situation without the slightest acknowledgement that the current IPP programme is under somewhat of a cloud. Why, in the context of his proclaimed battle against corruption, was nothing said about the sketchiness of the ‘great big dirty ships’ deal, which apparently remains on the cards? Another apparent conflict is that a speech that acknowledged the limitation of too much red tape and the poor performance of SOEs contained proud announcements that Cabinet was amending the Electricity Regulation Act to allow for the establishment of yet another independent (sic) state-owned transmission company. The President’s words, not ours! 

The rot runs deep at SOEs

The speech also singled out a number of SOEs, all under the control of the ANC led government since 1994, for throttling vibrant sectors of the economy. For example, Transnet’s handling of port infrastructure and the resultant mess for exporters, especially in the agricultural sector. And everybody’s favourite, PRASA, for its “direct and detrimental impact on the lives of ordinary South Africans”. 

Among the laugh out loud moment from this year’s SONA was the President’s confident decree: we will roll-out spectrum within three weeks, something that has been on the cards for as long as we can remember. PS, this writer was not sure whether the President was boasting when he spoke of the switch-off of analogue transmission or the now imminent auctioning of high frequency communication spectrum, both projects having been bungled for years. It seems that South Africa remains a country of unnecessary delays, countless kick-the-can-down-the-road inflection points and a litany of professional grade obfuscations… And SONA 22 underscored each of these truths yet again. 

There was some promise, we thought, in the renewed emphasis on jobs and job creation. “We all know that government does not create jobs; business creates jobs,” admitted Ramaphosa. Yes, the President said this, in the same breath announcing further focus on government’s pet employment projects such as the expanded public works programme. He also made no mention of the more than two million state employees whose most notable pursuit over the years has been to grow the gap between productivity and remuneration! 

A sprinkling of choice phrases

SONA 22 had the usual sprinkling of choice phrase such as “a new consensus”, “district development models” and the tried and tested “social compact”, among others. These noble aims would be achieved through the recently developed Economic Reconstruction and Recovery Plan, which is number x in the long number of post-Apartheid plans. The President rattled off overcoming the COVID-19 pandemic; a massive rollout of infrastructure; a substantial increase in local production; an employment stimulus to create jobs and support livelihoods; and the rapid expansion of the country’s energy generation capacity as critical components for success. 

We do not want to delve into the Covid-19 pandemic, as most South Africans are fairly jaded on the topic. However, the President did comment that government had “taken unprecedented actions to strengthen our health system, build laboratory capacity and prevent infections” in response to it. We agreed with item three in this statement, but remain slightly incredulous on the other points. Of greater concern was the up-in-the air promise of ending the national state of disaster as soon as we have finalised other measures under the National Health Act and other legislation to contain the pandemic. In other words, we have not seen the last of using pandemic to achieve long-term ruling party objectives. 

Going to war, once again

By this point you are probably on the verge of tears, suicidal even. We struggled, dear reader, valiantly to find some positives to sign off… “I ask every South African to rally together in our fight against corruption, in our fight to create jobs, in our fight to achieve a more just and equal society,” concluded the President… No problem, we will climb on board. Because this writer is not so cynical as to shirk his duty to fight the good fight for his fellow South Africans. Now, if only government will bring its end of the bargain too. 

Writer’s thoughts:
Aside from some of the leftward-leaning rhetoric, there was nothing in the President’s address that one could outright condemn. The problem is that nothing flagged as an issue during these annual assessments is ever addressed… Did you watch SONA 22? We would love for you to share your thoughts? Please comment below, interact with us on Twitter at @fanews_online or email us your thoughts [email protected].

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