Did Ramaphosa address your concerns at Sona? Here's what he said

President Cyril Ramaphosa's state of the nation address (Sona) tackled several issues, but did it address those most pressing to you?

Ramaphosa's sixth Sona was delivered from the Cape Town City Hall on Thursday after part of the parliamentary precinct, including the National Assembly, was destroyed in a fire. 

The DA said the president “made the right noises”, including plans to revive the economy and address challenges at Eskom, but called for him to now take action.

Two weeks ago, TimesLIVE reported that youth unemployment, SOEs, corruption, lifestyle audits and the Covid-19 Social Relief of Distress Grant were some of the issues South Africans expected to feature prominently in the president's address.

Here are the president's responses to each: 

Basic income grant and R350 grant

The government will not be introducing a basic income grant, but Ramaphosa announced the extension of the SRD Covid-19 grant until March 2023.

Ramaphosa said the grant has supported more than 10-million youths who either lost employment or could not look for work due to the pandemic.

“Mindful of the proven benefits of the grant, we will extend the R350 SRD grant for one year to the end of March 2023. During this time we will engage in broad consultations and detailed technical work to identify the best options to replace this grant.”

Corruption 

Ramaphosa addressed corruption allegations contained in the state capture report, saying he will present a plan of action on the state capture commission recommendations by no later than June. 

“I have every confidence that the NPA will carry out the further investigations the commission has recommended, and that it will bring the members of the criminal network that infiltrated government and captured the state swiftly to justice.”

The state of government-owned entities 

Ramaphosa vowed to rebuild state-owned enterprises destroyed by state capture and corruption.

He said government will assess their decline and implement recommendations by the presidential SOE Council that the government adopt a centralised shareholder model for its key commercial state-owned companies.

“It is essential that we reverse their decline, and position them to contribute positively. We have embarked on several immediate measures to restore these companies to health, at the same time as we undertake far-reaching reforms that will make our SOEs more efficient, competitive, accountable, and sustainable.”

Unemployment 

Ramaphosa said the Presidential Employment Stimulus programmes launched in October 2020 have supported more than 850,000 opportunities. The employment of teaching assistants was one of the biggest programmes in the country. 

More young people will be absorbed by the department of home affairs. 

“Department of home affairs will recruit 10,000 unemployed young people for the digitisation of paper records, enhancing their skills and contributing to the modernisation of citizen services.”

Lifestyle audits 

The president said lifestyle audits were being implemented across public service in support of a clampdown on corruption. Officials are required to submit declarations of their financial interests in line with the executive members’ ethics act and the executive ethics code.