WHILE ANC MPs sang praises for President Cyril Ramaphosa for his State of the Nation Address (Sona), opposition parties tore into his speech on Tuesday, 13 February.
DA leader John Steenhuisen said as Ramaphosa shared the story of Tintswalo, the child of democracy, there was no doubt that the South Africa she grew up in after 1994 was a hopeful place.
He said Tintswalo’s life story doesn't end after childhood.
“Today, she is a 30-year-old woman. She has entered the next phase of her life as a wife, a mother and a provider. Over the past decade, she has watched with growing horror as the dream of her childhood was betrayed,” said Steenhuisen.
Ramaphosa told the story of how his government helped Tintswalo live a better life when he delivered his Sona at the Cape Town City Hall on Thursday, 8 February.
Steenhuisen said her social consciousness started to develop during high school as she watched the ANC elevate a man accused of corruption and rape to the highest office in the land.
“She grew steadily more disillusioned when she found out that R246 million in public money was used to build a fire pool and chicken coup for the president at Nkandla, even as many people around her sank deeper into poverty. And she watched as the ANC members of this House protected him,” he said.
He said Tintswalo was happy when the ANC ejected former president Jacob Zuma from the presidency in February 2018.
He said in 2019, Tintswalo voted for Ramaphosa.
“But tragically, her hopes were shattered again soon after. In the same year that Mr Ramaphosa was elected, Tintswalo lost the first and only job she ever had, because the load shedding crisis that the president had promised to end, shut down the factory where she worked,” said Steenhuisen.
He said like millions of other South Africans, Tintswalo couldn't afford to live in the past.
“When Tintswalo listened to her president on Thursday, it did not make her grateful as she may have hoped. For here is the hard truth, Mr President, whether you like it or not: you have betrayed Tintswalo’s South African dream,” he said.
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ANC Chief Whip Pemmy Majodina said they were inspired by Ramaphosa’s address.
She said notwithstanding two years of Covid-19, the ANC government has done all what it could do.
“The president gave an honest, balanced reflection of where we stand a as a nation”, said Majodina.
She said the government would continue to implement transformation programmes to change lives of black people, especially women.
“Under the ANC, we will continue to take the country forward with all its challenges towards a better future for all,” she said.
She said the government must understand that loadshedding will not be tolerated as the country plunged into stage 6 on Saturday, 10 February.
IFP president Velenkosini Hlabisa said Ramaphosa couldn't point to 1994 as a measure of how far the country has come under the ANC government because it didn't govern alone between 1994 and 2004.
“The strong and stable democracy that was built from 1994 to 1999 was built by a government of national unity, a government in which the IFP served,” said Hlabisa.
He said it was only after the ANC gained unfettered power that governance began to falter.
“Since you took office, hounourable president, the rand has weakened from R11,55 to the dollar, to R18,63. We are poor in every way from this presidency,” he said.
UDM leader Bantu Holomisa said Tintswalo’s gogos and mkhulus wanted their pension money they contributed to the pension fund.
He said some of them have already died.
“They are not fighting with you. All they want is their money. Stop using their pension money to beef up BEE companies without paying them. Stop eating everything."
The EFF didn't participate in the Sona debate.
