Cosatu: critical analysis of President Ramaphosa's SONA 2025

The 2025 State of the Nation Address by President Cyril Ramaphosa comes as South Africa faces some of its most testing challenges.

Cosatu welcomes its progressive commitments and are encouraged by progress achieved over the past year but remain extremely worried about the slow pace of implementation in many instances.

Workers and society face severe crises, in particular a 41.9% unemployment rate, high levels of poverty and inequality, weak economic growth, endemic crime and corruption, overwhelmed public and municipal service and struggling state-owned enterprises (SOEs).

We applaud the impressive work done to rebuild Eskom and overcome loadshedding.  Eskom and our electricity infrastructure remain fragile and need urgent investments to unlock new generation, transmission and distribution capacity.  These must be anchored upon Eskom as our publicly owned utility and the nation’s most strategic economic asset.

An urgent solution needs to be found for the rising levels of debt owed to municipalities and Eskom if we are to sustain this progress.

Progress made stabilising Transnet and Metro Rail has brought much critical relief to the economy.  The government needs to accelerate efforts to rebuild Transnet and improve its performance, including debt relief to free capital to modernise our ports and rail network as well as law enforcement support to deal with cable theft.

An efficient Transnet will spur the mining, manufacturing and agricultural sectors and create thousands of jobs.  A reliable Metro Rail will help 10 million commuters reach work safely and boost the urban economy.

It is deeply concerning that no new plans have been put in place to stabilise and rebuild Denel, SABC, the Post Office and Postbank.  These SOEs have the potential to once again play leading roles in their sectors but they need support from the state, including Treasury honouring the agreed financial relief for the Post Office.

The outstanding work done by Home Affairs’ staff shows the state’s potential to unlock investment and stimulate growth.  It must not only be applauded but supported by filling of frontline vacancies, paying workers a living wage and investing in the capacity of the state.

The government must abandon short-sighted austerity budget cuts and provide public services, in particular healthcare, education, policing, courts and transport; the resources they need to provide the quality services the working class and economy depend upon to thrive.

This is key to rolling out the National Health Insurance and to ensure all South Africans have access to education, healthcare, social security, municipal services and land.

The state of local government is extremely worrying with increasing numbers in serious financial trouble and many no longer paying salaries, pensions and other payments or able to provide municipal services.  Urgent engagements on a new municipal funding model and a shift towards District Development Models are long overdue.

The R943 billion allocated for infrastructure investments over the Medium-Term Expenditure Framework provides the path to stimulating the economy but interventions are need to step up the speed of implementation and to defeat the construction mafia hindering many projects.

With 12 million South Africans unable to find jobs, public employment programmes, in particular the Presidential Employment Stimulus must be drastically expanded to accommodate at least 2 million participants by April and 4 million by November.

Cutting to the expenditure of these critical programmes must stop.  Engagements are needed at Nedlac on an overhaul of these programmes to ensure none pay below the National Minimum Wage, that TVET Colleges are roped in to help provide the skills, training and experience needed for participants to find permanent work.  These must include internships and artisan programmes across the private sector.

Similarly, SRD Grant recipients must be assisted to access skills, training and employment opportunities to help them find work.

If we are to achieve the 3% plus growth, we need to slash unemployment then we must put in place a new mass industrial and SMMEs financing package tapping into resources from the fiscus, developmental finance institutions, banks and investment funds and be anchored upon supporting local procurement.

The President spoke eloquently and firmly in defence of South Africa’s sovereignty and values.  No country may be allowed to dictate to the people of South Africa their path.  We are a robust and noisy democracy, but we cannot tolerate any attempts to intimidate us.  South Africa’s values are reflected in our foreign policy anchored upon the principles of peace and justice, solidarity and development, non-alignment and African unity.  We bear the painful scars of apartheid, colonialism and genocide and stand with all nations experiencing such tyranny, including the Palestinian people.

Cosatu will continue to support government’s efforts to develop strong relationships with all nations.  This must be accompanied by ramped up support to boost exports and diversify trade with not only key trading partners in America, Europe, China, Japan, India and Brazil but in particular Southern Africa and Africa.

The government must ensure that the South African National Defence Force has the resources it requires to fulfil its peacekeeping missions across Africa, including the necessary political support to ensure often intractable conflicts such as those in the Democratic Republic of Congo are resolved at the negotiations table.

We welcome the President’s inclusive call for a National Dialogue coordinated by Nedlac.  It must be premised upon the progressive values of the Constitution and vision of the Freedom Charter.  COSATU is ready to participate in and help drive this much needed dialogue.

Whilst many of the Sona’s commitments are welcome, they need to be resourced and not walked back by the pending 2025/26 Budget.  They need to be implemented by government with Parliament holding all Members of the Executive and departments, municipalities, entities and SOEs accountable.

South Africa is a nation of immense potential, but we need government to act with the decisiveness that our many burning crises demand.  The patience of workers and society is not infinite.   The working class deserves a better life.  We must not let them down.

Cosatu General Secretary Solly Phetoe

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