The day is here where President Cyril Ramaphosa will be taking the country into his confidence and outlining the policies and service delivery that the ANC-led government will deliver over the next year.
While many of the country’s citizens may be waiting in anticipation with popcorn in hand to see if the EFF will do good on its word and disrupt Ramaphosa’s speech over his failure to rein in Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan over the Eskom crisis, the reality is that millions of other South Africans will be tuned in to hear how their lives will be changed.
From the deep rural locations in the Eastern Cape, KwaZulu-Natal, Mpumalanga, the Free State, the North West including Limpopo among our nine provinces, radios will be ready to blare out Ramaphosa’s speech in all different languages while in urban areas, citizens, young and old, will either be streaming the live broadcast of the State of the Nation on their smart phones, digital gadgets or simply watching it over their phone.
The common thread yet again from all of these citizens who come from all walks of life will be to hear what changes will be made by the government over the next year and how this will affect their lives.
The fact of the matter is that so much has changed over the last year. The unemployment rate has increased to 29.1%, the people who were in Parliament before, such as Mmusi Maimane will no longer feature as members of Parliament, and most importantly, the lives of some leaders such as the late deputy minister of Mineral Resources and Energy Bavelile Hlongwa, who were determined to make this country work, have been cut short.
So you see, as the SONA is the life and breath of every single South African and should never be held ransom by any political party.
While the EFF has been known to disrupt, the DA and other parties have been famous for staging a walkout over principles they do not agree with, there have been guests, local and international, who have been sitting in gallery determined to see, in person, for themselves what the National Assembly is all about.
So today, as we wait for a possible ruckus in Parliament, Ramaphosa and the government should not let South Africans down but work hard to ensure that the citizens understand fully what current state our nation (South Africa) is really in and what we can do to build it so that it is better for future generations.