By Parliament is now officially open for business as President Cyril Ramaphosa delivered his Opening of Parliament Address (OPA) on Thursday evening, 18 July 2024, where he outlined the priorities of his government over the next five years.
The joint sitting was rather different to that of the previous ones, the Economic Free Fighters (EFF) held their peace with not points of orders being made and delaying the proceedings. Furthermore, the Democratic Alliance (DA) seemed happy and impressed by the President’s speech and were clapping for him from the word go to the last iota.
During his address, Ramaphosa pointed out that his government has learnt over the past 30 years of democracy that, when the economy grows, jobs are created, also, when the economy stalls, there is no job creation.
He said the South African economy has barely grown in the last 10 years and decisive efforts need to be made to turn the tide around.
What could be of more interest is the reduction of the number of food items that carry VAT in order to enable affordability in the country.
President Cyril Ramaphosa outlined three priorities of the Medium Term Plan, of which he said Cabinet will later translate into a detailed plan.
“We have decided to place inclusive economic growth at the centre of the work of the Government of National Unity and at the top of the national agenda. The Government of National Unity will pursue every action that contributes to sustainable, rapid economic growth and remove every obstacle that stands in the way of growth.
We are determined that growth must be inclusive. It must be transformational. Inclusive growth must drive the redistribution of wealth and opportunity. It must support the empowerment of black South Africans and women, and all those who in the past had been relegated to the fringes of the economy. This is part of the constitutional imperative to redress the imbalances of the past and deal with the slow process of development,” said Ramaphosa.
Though it remains to be seen on how some of the pointers are going to be implemented in the GNU because they are at a discord with some of the political party’s ideologies within the GNU.
Ramaphosa said government will continue to pursue the program of broad-based economic empowerment, employment equity and support to small- and medium-sized enterprises.
The second strategic priority that Cyril Ramaphosa presented is that of poverty alleviation and protecting the poor from high cost of living; with rising prices shrinking the food basket significantly while big companies walk away with huge profits.
“As the Government of National Unity, we will look to expand the basket of essential food items exempt from VAT and undertake a comprehensive review of administered prices, including the fuel price formula, to identify areas where prices can be reduced.
Asset poverty is one of the underlying causes of abject poverty, which exacerbates the high cost of living amongst our people. The provision of title deeds for land and subsidised housing provides people with assets that they can use to improve their economic position,” said the President.
Cyril Ramaphosa said one of the contributors to poverty is income poverty and the best way to deal with it is by giving people jobs, as such, government has made some interventions to support the unemployed through a variety of interventions including during Covid when we introduced the SRD Grant.
He however pointed out that more grants will be given to people to enable them to support themselves and ensure that local governments properly implement the indigent policy so that the old, the infirm and the poor are able to get assistance with the payment of basic services.
“As we implement the National Health Insurance, we will focus on strengthening health care infrastructure, improving training of health care personnel and using technology to improve health care management.
While there is much contestation around the NHI, there is broad agreement that we must draw on the resources and capabilities of both the public and private sectors to meet the health care needs of all South Africans equally,” he said.
The country has been riddled with corruption over the years which affected service delivery. In government’s third strategy, Ramaphosa said the Government of National Unity is to build a capable, ethical and developmental state.
“We will proceed with the work already underway to professionalise the public service, ensuring that we attract into the state people with skills, capabilities and integrity. We will continue to fight corruption and prevent undue political interference in the administration of the state.
In this administration, we will complete the work to restore the financial position and operational performance of our state-owned enterprises. We will complete the implementation of a new centralised ownership model for SOEs. This will improve accountability, transparency, governance and oversight, while reducing inefficiency and the potential for corruption.
The establishment of a state-owned SOE holding company will give us greater capacity to build a sovereign wealth fund. This has been done successfully by other countries whose sovereign wealth funds have built up capital from the high performance of the state owned enterprises rather than from the fiscus,” said President Cyril Ramaphosa.
