President Cyril Ramaphosa has defended the use of task teams and pointed to easing inflation and lower borrowing costs, among other early signs of economic recovery, as key achievements of the government’s seventh administration since the advent of democracy.
Responding to this week’s debate in parliament on his State of the Nation address, Ramaphosa said government interventions were designed to stabilise the macroeconomic environment and reduce pressure on public finances.
“South Africans are feeling the benefits of some of the changes, from improved supply of electricity, to the return of service to commuter rail lines, to the reduction in the cost of data as well,” he said.
Ramaphosa noted that the country had endured 205 days of load-shedding in 2022 and 330 days in 2023, describing that period as the most severe phase of the energy crisis.
He credited the energy crisis committee with helping to stabilise electricity supply and said its structure demonstrated the effectiveness of coordinated task teams.
The president pushed back against criticism by MPs for establishing another task team to tackle the country’s water crisis after he set up a police special investigations task team to probe those implicated in corruption at the Madlanga commission.
“It succeeded because it was able to draw on the skills, the capabilities, the resources and the efforts of a broad range of departments and public institutions, as well as the best experts in South Africa and around the world,” Ramaphosa said.
The president said that over the past 30 years the government had improved the lives of South Africans, although he acknowledged that the past eight years had been marked by “intractable and difficult challenges”.
“There can be no doubt that we have made progress. Even those that deny that we have progress know that we have made progress,” he said.
“But working together, we have undertaken a programme of institutional renewal by stabilising what was weakened through state capture, restoring accountability and stability and rebuilding the capacity of the state to serve the people of South Africa.
The economy had rebounded from a 6% contraction due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the July 2021 unrest in Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal and prolonged load-shedding, Ramaphosa said, arguing that the early signs of recovery were visible.
“Over the past year we have seen promising signs of recovery. Whether people like it or not, it has been there. Whether people think it’s an illusion, it has been there. Whether people think we’ve turned the corner or not, they are blind because we are turning the corner. That is where we are,” he said.
“Our task now is to sustain this momentum, to protect and build on the progress that we have made and are continuing to make. And to ensure that this progress results in tangible improvements in the lives of every South African,” he said.
Ramaphosa said reduced borrowing costs and declining public debt service obligations were freeing resources for health, education and policing, while creating space for greater private sector investment. Lower inflation increased households’ purchasing power which, in turn, supported businesses and job creation.
The president, however, acknowledged that significant structural challenges remained. More than 10 million South Africans lived below the poverty line and about 11 million were unemployed, he conceded. More than 3.5 million young people aged between 18 and 24 were not in education, employment or training.
Ramaphosa highlighted social support measures introduced under ANC governments over the past three decades, including the child support grant, which reached 13 million children, and free primary healthcare for pregnant women and children under six.
“Through the measures that we are putting in place to end child stunting we will improve the developmental outcomes and the life prospects of millions of children in our country,” he said, also citing improvements in the matric pass rate, particularly in under-resourced schools, as well as growth in student funding.
“In the five years from 2019 and 2024, funding from NSFAS nearly doubled, from R27 billion to R54 billion.”
The government would pursue a dual development model aimed at equipping young people with skills aligned to economic demand, with a specific focus on architects, engineers and artisans, he said, pointing to the Presidential Employment Programme and the more than 5.4 million young people registered on the Youth Employment Service as examples of efforts to tackle youth unemployment.
“We have not experienced the excitement of the promise of rapid growth for almost 20 years as a country but we are on this cusp of achieving it now. We are focused on rebuilding the economy and driving investment,” he said.
Ramaphosa also acknowledged that crime and insecurity remained among the biggest obstacles to economic expansion.
“We know that crime and insecurity remain significant impediments to growth. That is why we are intensifying the fight against organised crime and violence, gun crime and gender-based violence.”
In addition to previously announced deployments in the Western Cape and Gauteng, Ramaphosa said the Eastern Cape would be another region where the South African National Defence Force would be deployed to assist police in tackling illegal mining and gang violence.
MPs had criticised the president for establishing another task team to tackle the country’s water crisis after he set up a police special investigations task team to probe those implicated in corruption at the Madlanga commission