By: Natasha Archary
As President Cyril Ramaphosa prepares to deliver this year’s State of the Nation Address (SONA), a review of last years address shows that while there has been some progress, the problem areas are still there.
A perfect example would be corruption and mismanagement, where despite Ramaphosa maintaining a zero tolerance stance on corruption, it still remains one of the biggest hurdles the country has to overcome.
Last year’s SONA promises included the President assuring South Africans that any individual found to be misusing public funds would be dealt with.
But, Ramaphosa has evaded the ANC’s internal responsibility for corruption entirely.
The Zondo Commission reports on State Capture indicated that corruption within government is clearly internal.
Unemployment, crime and gender-based violence were all priorities in last year’s address, with the President promising efforts would be in place to tackle these serious issues.
However, last year’s crimes statistics and unemployment data does not reflect as much.
Between April and June 2022, 6424 people were killed, and 989 women were murdered between July and September 2022.
A total of 12 283 cases of rape and murder were prioritized as per requests and responded to from August 2021 to July 2022.
There was an increase in murder cases, compared to the same period last year.
While the trend in unemployment showed a slight improvement throughout 2022, there were still notable job losses in the finance, private, mining and agriculture sectors.
Also read: SONA 2023: Cabinet reshuffle, who’s in, who’s out?
