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Sona 2017 isn’t a game. Zuma needs to go beyond the usual rhetoric

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Jacob Zuma.  Picture: Thapelo Maphakela
Jacob Zuma. Picture: Thapelo Maphakela

This year’s state of the nation address is already mired in controversy and the president is yet to take to the podium.

From the news that members of the media will need to have escorts should they wish to move around the parliamentary precinct, to the announcement that President Jacob Zuma has deployed 441 members of the South African National Defence Force to “maintain law and order” during the opening of Parliament, there is much to be concerned about.

Amid all these distractions, it is important for us all to keep our attention focused on the president’s speech and on the programmes the government plans to deliver this year. For my part, I have hopes and I have expectations.

One of my hopes is that certain political parties will desist from the disruptive and unproductive acts of grandstanding we have witnessed since 2014.

Before you bite my head off please note that I am not a supporter of the ANC.

However, I am an advocate of constitutionalism, and chapter four of our Constitution empowers the president to call an extraordinary sitting of Parliament to conduct special business. The state of the nation address is one such business.

More critically, as citizens we have a right to hear what the head of state has to say and no politician should stand in the way of this.

Some members of Parliament do not believe the president deserves respect and that is their prerogative but they should be warned that we, the public, the people who actually pay them to work, deserve respect.

Part of respecting us means being accountable and this speech provides an opportunity for citizens to engage in the direction the country will take and how it will affect us.

Members of Parliament are able to endorse or disagree with the speech during the debates that follow and on other platforms but there needs to be an appreciation that this is not a game; the work of government is about real people with real consequences, and politicians should not use this occasion to score cheap electoral points.

As far as expectations are concerned, the bar for this government is very low.

I expect the president to pay the usual lip service to the National Development Plan.

Fortunately we are not in an election year so he should spare us “good story to tell” mantra.

I also expect a paragraph dedicated to land reform following the president’s “January 8 statement” to his party where he promised a “revolutionary approach to land reform”. Thank you Economic Freedom Fighters.

Despite being underwhelmed by this president and his government, I am a patriot and I want our country to succeed. I therefore expect the president to provide commitments to some of the most pressing challenges of our time.

As students across the country prepare to commence the academic year, they need to hear the president outlining a plan to address student tuition and debt.

This plan needs to go beyond the usual rhetoric about dedicating more funding to the National Student Financial Aid Scheme but rather, the president needs to tell poor students how he will ensure they will access higher education and how the burden of student loans will not keep them poor if they are fortunate enough to get a job.

Too little emphasis is placed on student debt and the effects it has on the family of a student who is often the breadwinner, therefore the president needs to demonstrate an awareness of this and propose ways of paying off this debt in a way that is sympathetic to such students.

I also expect the president to address youth unemployment.

Although he will no doubt pat himself on the back for the fact that 288 000 more people were employed between the second and third quarters of 2016, he should also be mindful that in the same period and under his leadership, the overall unemployment rate reached a 13-year high at 27.1%.

During past speeches we have been treated to enthusiastic announcements of plans that would later be abandoned, like was the youth wage subsidy.

The governing party’s alliance partners disapproved of this plan and it was quickly shelved for a “youth employment accord”.

If this latest “strategy” has been a success, the government has been pathetic in communicating it. However, one only needs to look at the statistics to conclude differently.

I advise the president to abstain from playing political football with young people’s lives and to stand up for them against his party alliance partners and anyone else in the way.

This time, have a plan and stick to it. I know this is asking a lot but remember, I’m an optimist.

This state of the nation will be President Jacob Zuma’s last as the head of the ANC.

He needs to use this opportunity to commit himself to our country and less to the internal party battles he has had to fight over past years.

To call the past eight years a disaster is an understatement but I believe the president can spend his last two years in office creating fertile ground for the next administration. When we assess his legacy some day, we should hopefully be able to give him credit for that.

» Mondli Zondo is a Mandela Washington Fellow, President Barack Obama’s initiative for young African Leaders and he writes in his personal capacity. Follow him on Twitter: @MoZondo

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