Drawing Blanks
Senior Cabinet Ministers in tow, President Zuma gave the country a predictably vague, flowery Sona update on the progress of the 9-point plan yesterday, 10 August, 2015. The media briefing came after Zuma hit a big, fat blank upon being questioned about the South African economy, job creation and illegal cash flow, in Parliament last week.
To obscure his universal cluelessness, the President had the Minister of Finance, Nhlanhla Nene, the Minister in the Presidency, Jeff Radebe, the Minister of Economic Development, Ebrahim Patel and the Minister of Rural Development and Land Reform, Gugile Nkwinti acting as answerable human shields, in case journalists fired off questions he would invariably need to dodge.
Unintended Consequences
True to his slippery nature, shortfalls were dismissed as ‘unintended consequences’ or blamed on the ‘global climate’, without ascribing a hint of culpability to government defectiveness or leadership incompetence.
Overall, the Sona update proved rather devoid of newsworthiness, being primarily composed of unfulfilled promises and wishy-washy musings.
Ambiguous Admissions
Though no-one blinked an eye after discovering economic growth was not where it should be, an admission alone by the president was enough to raise brows, as Zuma acknowledged ‘We committed ourselves to a 5% growth rate by 2019. The 1.5% economic growth rate attained in 2014 is a distance from that NDP ambition.’
Zuma’s Sona update even included an acknowledgment that load shedding was currently weakening economic growth by almost 1%. Nonetheless, characteristically ambiguous claims ensued, such as ‘“substantial progress has been made in resolving the energy challenge” and “the nuclear build programme is at an advanced stage of planning and the procurement should be concluded within the current financial year.”
Immigration Regulations Flop
The most newsworthy Sona update came in the form of an announcement of the establishment of an interministerial committee (IMC) on immigration regulations, indicating that new hotly contested immigration regulations had inevitably backfired.
