African Transformation Movement president Vuyo Zungula has slammed President Cyril Ramaphosa’s Inclusive plan to grow the economy - that was not happening.
Zungula said Ramaphosa had being punting “inclusive growth” since 2018.
“We need to be critical of the president not because we hate him, because we love our citizens and we want what’s best for them.
“The unfortunate reality in our country is that there seems to be this protecting of the president in terms of him being held accountable. He’s been making this speech since 2018. The crux of the matter is, what has it yielded in term of the reality lived by the people?” Zungula said.
Delivering his Opening of Parliament Address (OPA) on Thursday evening, Ramaphosa said parties if the Government of National Unity (GNU), through the Statement of Intent, made a firm commitment to respect the Constitution and the rule of law and to promote accountability, transparency, integrity and good governance.
Ramaphosa said the GNU had resolved to dedicate the next five years to actions that would advance three strategic priorities.
These three priorities, according to the president, was to drive inclusive growth and job creation, to reduce poverty, tackle the high cost of living and also to build a capable, ethical and developmental state.
“We have decided to place inclusive economic growth at the centre of the work of the Government of National Unity and at the top of the national agenda,” Ramaphosa said.
“We are determined that growth must be inclusive. It must be transformational. Inclusive growth must drive the redistribution of wealth and opportunity.
“Inclusive growth requires that we remove the social, economic, cultural and other barriers to the full participation of persons with disabilities and other vulnerable groups in the economy,” Ramaphosa said.
He said that in order for the GNU to achieve rapid, inclusive growth, they needed to fix the struggling municipalities.
“Growth happens at a local level, where people live and work,” Ramaphosa said.
“Our municipalities must become both the providers of social services and facilitators of inclusive economic growth.
“We will massively increase the scale of investment in infrastructure through a more holistic and integrated approach, positioning Infrastructure South Africa as the central institution of co-ordination and planning.
“To create more jobs for South Africans, we will focus on processing our minerals so that we export finished products rather than raw commodities.”
He said the Cabinet would be convening a further strategy session to consider the Medium-Term Development Plan which, according to him, would translate these priorities into a detailed plan and interventions that government would implement over the next five years.
Ramaphosa further said there was a huge pipeline of renewable energy projects already, which was representing over 22 500MW of new generating capacity, estimated to be worth around R400 billion in new private investment, adding that investment such as these would create many jobs.
“As we pursue these new areas of growth, we will continue with the far-reaching reforms that enable growth. At the same time, we will launch the second phase of Operation Vulindlela, a government-wide initiative that has been essential in supporting and driving reform,” said Ramaphosa.
“We will complete the most consequential transformation of South Africa’s electricity industry in more than a century.
“Over the next five years, government will focus on expanding and strengthening the transmission network.
“We need an efficient freight rail network to carry our minerals, agricultural produce and manufactured goods to market.
“Through the implementation of the Freight Logistics Roadmap, we will continue with reforms to transform South Africa’s freight logistics system”.
Zungula said it was time that Ramaphosa should be interrogated to assess whether they were yielding good results when it came to the lived results of the people.
He said the president mastered the Bible verse which talks about giving people their daily bread.
Saturday Star