President Cyril Ramaphosa will deliver his annual State of the Nation Address (SONA) on Thursday, February 6, 2025, from the parliamentary precinct in Cape Town.

As he prepares to outline his administration’s vision for the country, many South Africans remain deeply sceptical.

Build One South Africa (BOSA), led by Mmusi Maimane, is among the loudest critics of Ramaphosa’s track record.

The party’s acting spokesperson, Roger Solomons, has highlighted the widening gulf between the President’s commitments and the lived realities of citizens.

“For years, the President has spoken of reforms and grand plans, yet little has changed. Eskom remains in crisis, job creation lags, and economic growth figures are misleading at best,” said Solomons.

“The structural problems in this country require decisive action, not empty promises.”

According to BOSA, one of Ramaphosa’s most significant failures was the long-promised unbundling of Eskom, which was first announced in 2019.

The President set a deadline of December 2022, yet by 2024, only a transmission subsidiary has materialised.

The party claims that the generation and distribution units remain unstructured, with no new timeline for completion.

BOSA has highlighted Ramaphosa's 2022 commitment to establish a social compact within 100 days to address unemployment and poverty; however, the deadline passed without any progress.

By 2023, Ramaphosa admitted that no agreement had been reached, shifting the blame to external circumstances.

The digital migration process is another example cited by the party. In 2022, the President assured South Africans that the transition to digital television would be completed by March of that year.

Instead, the deadline has been extended multiple times, now pushed to December 2024.

BOSA argues that South Africa is one of the last nations still reliant on outdated analog technology, nearly a decade past the global deadline.

Similarly, the party criticises Ramaphosa’s pledge to cut red tape and improve business efficiency, claiming it remains largely unfulfilled.

Despite commitments to streamline bureaucratic processes, businesses continue to face long delays in obtaining permits and registering properties, hampering investment and economic growth.

In his 2024 SONA, Ramaphosa claimed that South Africa’s economy had tripled over the past 30 years.

However, BOSA contends that when adjusted for inflation, the real GDP growth is far less impressive. This discrepancy has led to accusations from the party that the President is manipulating statistics to paint an overly rosy picture of economic progress while millions of South Africans remain trapped in poverty.

Solomons summed up the growing disillusionment: “The government’s narrative about economic growth does not match the lived experience of ordinary South Africans. The gap between what is promised and what is delivered keeps widening.”

IOL politics