Cyril Ramaphosa

Opposition parties reject Cyril Ramaphosa's State of the Nation Address, saying it offered no solutions for South Africa's problems.

[READ: Sona 2023: rising cost of living prompts increase in social grants](https://ewn.co.za/0001/01/01/sona-2023-rising-cost-of-living-prompts-increase-in-social-grants) Both the Democratic Alliance (DA) and Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) rejected Ramaphosa’s Sona saying the address offered no solutions to the country’s problems - including the electricity crisis. CAPE TOWN - African National Congress (ANC) members of Parliament (MPs) have come to Cyril Ramaphosa’s defence after opposition MPs tore into his State of the Nation Address (Sona).

The first three hours of the debate on President Cyril Ramaphosa's State of the Nation Address have been dominated by South Africa's energy crisis.

But, she said, this would miss the point. The debate will continue on Tuesday afternoon and on Wednesday before Ramaphosa responds on Thursday. - The debate will continue on Tuesday afternoon and on Wednesday, before Ramaphosa responds on Thursday.

DA leader says voters face a clear choice in next year's national polls after president lost the opportunity to pull back from the brink.

Let us not delude ourselves that South Africa can survive a government that has made promises, reneged on promises, made plans, gone back on plans, changed direction, moved backwards and stood still, all while our country is burning.” Or we will have a blue coalition, led by the DA, that leads our country across the Rubicon into a better, brighter and more prosperous future.” Even if this government were to wake up now and do its job, there is no guarantee it will be enough to claw our government back from disaster,” he said. “We tried the idealism of the new dawn, and it turned into a false dawn. For that is what we in the DA offer this country.” That you, Mr President, are guilty of something even worse than the thing you once accused Zuma of,” he said.

Speaker of the National Assembly Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula, President Cyril Ramaphosa and deputy speaker Lechesa Tsenoli stand while the national anthem plays ...

Ivo Vegter writes an opinion article that criticises South African President Cyril Ramaphosa's recent State of the Nation Address.

It was barren, impotent; an insult to the long-suffering people of South Africa. All the ANC has to show for at least the last three presidential terms is regress and deterioration. The Free Market Foundation and its liberal allies has been telling him to do that for 30 years. We need everyone to disagree with the government, and do things differently from the government, who governed us right into darkness and despair. We don’t need everyone to agree with the government. They don’t benefit the people of South Africa. Electricity and energy policy will now be the province of the Minister of Electricity, the Minister of Public Enterprises, the Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources ( Central planning is what created most of this chaos in the first place. Here we are, economy in tatters, and Eskom no nearer to being fixed that it was a year ago, two years ago, or five years ago, when Ramaphosa first took to the SONA lectern ( ‘[It] can provide a viable and affordable alternative to the commercial banks.’ You have never been focused on any actions other than those that served you and your party, and as a distant third, the National Democratic Revolution. ‘To fully implement this plan, we need strong central coordination and decisive action,’ the president said.

State of the Nation Address by President Cyril Ramaphosa at the Cape Town City Hall. Democratic Alliance (DA) leader John Steenhuisen says President Cyril ...

Steenhuisen reminded Ramaphosa how the administration under Zuma was labelled nine wasted years. First as tragedy, and then as fuss and that is exactly what you have brought on South Africa.” He says, “If you thought that we lost some gains under Zuma, then under this administration we have gained only losses.

As opposition parties tore apart President Cyril Ramaphosa's state of the nation address, ANC members of Parliament were at their defensive best as they ...

As cadre deployment corruption rips apart the very fabric of the state, there is only one party that runs a clean and competent provincial government in the Western Cape." "On Thursday, a courageous leader who really cared about this nation would have had the head and the heart to admit that his party was wrong. He mentioned the DA was the only party which was capable of fixing the mess created by the ANC. This was in reference to Ramaphosa’s announcement of a new ministry in the presidency to deal with the electricity and energy crisis. Steenhuisen accused Ramaphosa of being too weak, too indecisive and too cowardly to take on the cadres, the compromised and the vested interests in the political party he led. That it’s time to cross the Rubicon and embrace the opposite of socialism, which is power to the people," he added.

In his speech the president declared another state of disaster, over which the co-operative governance and traditional affairs minister will preside. Leaders ...

However, if it is to improve and deliver services to citizens, political parties will have to be credibly deterred from behaving the way the EFF did in advance of the president’s speech. The quality of his cabinet is all-important. Yes, mining recovery depends on energy, port and rail infrastructure getting fixed, but it also depends on creating an operating environment strongly built on the rule of law, and we still do not have a functional, transparent cadastre system that operates licensing allocation. And the monetary policy committee noted in January that “while the economy grew by a relatively strong 1.6% in the third quarter of 2022, the expansion was not broad-based”. The president only mentioned the industry in passing — that red tape will be reduced in the mining rights processing system. While the president’s emphasis on fixing roads, rail, ports, energy and water provision is welcome in this respect, investment is equally dependent on governance — transparency, accountability and the rule of law. As it is, a minuscule proportion of the population — about two-million people — contribute the majority of personal income tax paid to the fiscus. It was not clear from the president’s speech exactly how the creation of an electricity minister within the presidency will actually fix the load-shedding problem, which now costs the economy roughly R1bn a day in lost productivity. In his speech the president declared another state of disaster, over which the co-operative governance and traditional affairs minister will preside. The pandemic did not create the loss of 2-million jobs: poor governance responses, especially declaring a state of disaster and shutting down the economy unnecessarily in many cases, cost us 2-million jobs. Tone counts for a large portion of how a speech lands, and the president struck a useful combination of being emphatic and empathetic. In his biography on Cyril Ramaphosa, Prof Anthony Butler memorably remarked that not many of the president’s speeches had been memorable.

Members of Parliament will continue their debate on the State of the Nation Address (Sona) on Wednesday, after opposition MPs tore into the president's ...

The 'new dawn' was a false dawn. CAPE TOWN - Members of Parliament will continue their debate on the State of the Nation Address (Sona) on Wednesday after opposition MPs tore into the president’s address on Tuesday. Members of Parliament will continue their debate on the State of the Nation Address (Sona) on Wednesday, after opposition MPs tore into the president’s address on Tuesday.

The opposition parties spent most of yesterday tearing apart Ramaphosa's address over the power crisis, the electricity minister, failed SOEs and the high ...

You went to a separate kitchen cabinet and created a ministry of electricity, which does not derive from the resolutions of your own organisation,” Malema said. The reality of the situation is that you went against the advice we gave you when you started as the president to listen to your own organisation. “For as long as the leadership of the police is working with criminals, we will never defeat crime in this country. You are a man on top and doing nothing, and it is very irresponsible for a man to be on top and do nothing. We cannot fight crime while being led by criminals; we must first get rid of them in order to defeat crime. He further said: “What happened to DJ Sumbody and AKA, we will never get to know because the higher echelons of the police are in cahoots with the criminal syndicate.

President Cyril Ramaphosa offers his deep condolences to the families of the 20 people who died in a collision between a bus and a truck carrying cash in ...

“A second of haste or impatience can result in a lifetime of loss and pain and there is no risk that is worth taking no matter what your experience may be as a driver. “Incidents of this kind also have economic consequences for the people involved and for the businesses they may operate or in which they are employed. President Ramaphosa said: “As compatriots, we are deeply saddened when we experience such a loss of life on our roads.

The news of the crash was also confirmed by the Limpopo province's MEC for transport, Florence Radzilani, who updated the death toll in the fatal bus crash ...

She said it was her hope that the death toll would remain where it is and not increase. "As compatriots, we are deeply saddened when we experience such a loss of life on our roads. It is reported that a tour bus collided with a cash-in-transit van on Monday, leaving scores of people critically injured.

President Cyril Ramaphosa is mourning the death of the 21 people who lost their lives in a horrific accident between a bus and a cash-in-transit van in ...

“We must all do what we can to travel in safety while we treat our roads as a shared amenity, which they are. Ramaphosa extended his prayers to the families, friends and colleagues of the deceased. “The RTMC crash investigation unit has initiated investigations, and will be working with the police to identify factors that led to the unfortunate and regrettable loss of life,” Zwane said.

President Cyril Ramaphosa also wished the survivors a speedy recovery as he feared that the crash may have left them with trauma and psychological scars.

Ramaphosa also wished the survivors a speedy recovery as he feared that the crash may have left them with trauma and psychological scars. President Cyril Ramaphosa also wished the survivors a speedy recovery as he feared that the crash may have left them with trauma and psychological scars. President Ramaphosa has cautioned motorists to practice patience on the road, alluding to the possibility that the fatal crash may have been a result of impatience.

President Cyril Ramaphosa has sent his condolences to the families of those who died following a head-on collision between a bus and a truck in Limpopo ...

We must all do what we can to travel in safety, while we treat our roads as a shared amenity, which they are,” the President said. “As compatriots, we are deeply saddened when we experience such a loss of life on our roads. “While we reflect on this, our prayers go out to the families, friends and colleagues of those who have perished in Limpopo,” President Ramaphosa said.

EFF leader Julius Malema has denied that he threatened and intimidated President Cyril Ramaphosa at the State of the Nation Address (SONA).

He claimed that EFF MPs only wanted to stand on stage silently with placards. asked Malema of those who insinuated that he had threatened Ramaphosa. Under no circumstances will he ever be threatened by me, or can he feel that his life is under threat because Julius is next to him," Malema said on Tuesday.

Various quarters of society including business and unions have put pressure on the president to reconfigure his Cabinet following the African National ...

[READ: Mashatile to be sworn in as MP, opening the door for a cabinet reshuffle](https://ewn.co.za/2023/02/06/mashatile-to-be-sworn-in-as-mp-opening-the-door-for-a-cabinet-reshuffle) [he country’s number two, has already resigned from the position](https://ewn.co.za/2023/02/06/david-mabuza-resignation-an-apparent-calculated-move-as-cabinet-reshuffle-looms) but Ramaphosa asked him [READ: Economists urge Ramaphosa to reshuffle Cabinet and save SA](https://ewn.co.za/2023/02/06/economists-urge-ramaphosa-to-reshuffle-cabinet-and-save-sa)

The president tells party leaders that the new electricity minister will also be a project manager for Medupi and Kusile power stations.

He shocked his close allies when he announced that he would appoint a minister of electricity in his office, who would be responsible for energy recovery. Instead, Ramaphosa changed tactics and announced that the utility would remain under Gordhan’s public enterprises portfolio, alongside the new ministry in his office. “It’s unlikely to be someone from his ANC circles. He said it will happen soon and I think we are likely to see some movement at the end of next week,” one party leader said. Dlodlo’s position has been vacant for over a year after she left the country following her appointment as an executive director on the board of the World Bank in Washington in April. There has been widespread speculation that Ramaphosa will axe non-performing ministers.

President Cyril Ramaphosa will hold off on reshuffling his executive until after the presentation of the annual budget next week, according to members of ...

Ramaphosa’s allies have sought to persuade him to consider alternatives to Mashatile for the No. Ramaphosa also announced plans in his state-of-the-nation address last week to appoint a new electricity minister within his office to tackle ongoing power outages. Ramaphosa didn’t specify when the long-awaited changes will be made, according to the people, who asked not to be identified because they aren’t authorised to comment.