READER LETTER | Ramaphosa’s Sona speech far from reality

The state of the nation address (Sona) by President Cyril Ramaphosa not only was pedestrian, but it recycled promises and amplified easy victories.

Needless to say, it was loaded with an oft-repeated narrative of state capture, whose beneficiaries wriggled Ramaphosa out of an impeachment. This explains why they’re re-appointed in his blame-shifting administration.

A renewal project never saw the light of day. The so-called “new dawn” remains rhetorical, interwoven with corruption. Ramaphosa smuggled faint praises for Tintswalo to illustrate a life experience of an ordinary black child.

That was a myopic generalisation, with no shade of relation to reality in Alexandra and Marikana. A vast majority of youth languish in poverty and unemployment. Some have turned into liquor slaves and drug addicts lured into criminality.

The authorities remain missing in action, expecting every community to solve these problems by itself. Whereas corruption is the real enemy, skewed priorities continue to be a serious dragon “a better life for all”.

The Sona has a budget and rural schools have none amid a distressing experience of loadshedding. That’s a reality of the past 30 years with no end in sight.

Morgan Phaahla, Ekurhuleni