SONA 2022: Unleashing People’s Power will fix a Broken Nation

“It must be said however, that our review highlighted yet again the urgent need to build an equal, inclusive and just society, if there is to be lasting peace and stability.” Report of the Expert Panel into the July 2021 Unrest.

When President Ramaphosa presents his 2022 State of the Nation Address (SONA) on Thursday it is unlikely to be an upbeat one. Ramaphosa will probably summon all of his gravitas to present a fairly honest assessment of the many challenges our country faces - after all they are hard to deny. We will hear about:
State capture.
State incapability.
Recovery from the Covid crisis.
You can almost script it in advance. We know the formula by now.

But even though SONA will touch honestly on many real issues, it will still be a subjective assessment that is unlikely to admit the whole story. We must view it as the opinion of a President whose job is on the line, on behalf of a political party whose future as a government should be on the line.
However, if we can't expect a wholly honest SONA, what yardsticks should South Africans use to objectively assess the state of our nation?

The answer is straightforward enough.
The Constitution is our supreme law, and lies at the heart of all governance. It then should be the first measure for assessment of progress towards (or away from) the socially just and more equal society it mandates government to create; the human rights that it promises in Chapter 2; and the duty it imposes as a “principle of co-operative government and intergovernmental relations” (section 41) on “all spheres of government and all organs of state within each sphere” to “secure the well-being of the people of the Republic”

Looked at this way, based on objective and independent measures, our nation is in a bad state. South Africa:

• is ranked 114th (out of 189 countries) on the 2020 Human Development Index published annually by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP);
• “is one of the world’s most unequal countries [where] the highest 10% of income earners capture more than 65% of total South African income, while the poorest 50% only get 5% of it.” (According to the 2022 World Inequality Report, published by the World Inequality Lab)
• is a country where “the richest South Africans have wealth levels broadly comparable with those of rich Western Europeans, the poorest half of the population owns no wealth at all.” This is borne out by research by Sharlene Swartz of the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) who demonstrates that “when ranking population groups against other countries, Black African South Africans rank 142nd, Coloured South Africans 120th, Indian South Africans 53rd, and White South Africans 15th.”
• Is ranked 52nd out of 139 countries in the World Justice Project’s Rule of Law Index (2021) and 70th out of 180 countries on its 2021 Corruption Perceptions Index (by Transparency International).

Read more of Maverick Citizen editor, Mark Heywood's editorial.

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