SONA 2026 | Prof André Roux, Willem Els and Mluleki Nkosi on expectations

Parlement says it has budgeted 7 million rand for this year's State of the Nation Address. This is significantly less than the 15.5 million rand that was budgeted for last year's State of the Nation Address. The presiding offices of the institution briefed the media about its preparations for hosting this prestigious event. Let's unpack what we can expect with Principal Lecturer in Economics at Stellenbosch Business School, Professor Andre Roo, Senior Training Coordinator and Researcher at the Institute for Security Studies, Willem Els. And we'll hopefully be joined by the Chairperson of Salgas Emergency Services and Disaster Management Working Group, Councillor Mnulek Ngos.

Willem

Els, perhaps I want to start the conversation with you. Last year, a big takeaway from that State of the Nation Address was this promise that the fight against crime and corruption will be taken a lot more seriously, the promise that 10,000 new police officers would be appointed. Of course, that didn't follow through given what the outcome of the fiscal program was with the disputed series of budgets that were tabled and not tabled and then a reduced fiscal program meant reducing some of the ambitious programs, of which one of those was the appointment of 10,000 police officers. But what we have seen subsequent to that is some improvement in certain crime indicators and categories.

Is that an indication of perhaps the green shoots of earlier efforts in fighting crime in South Africa? And how do you hope the President frames that conversation in the State of the Nation Address?

Good evening to you. Yeah, if you look at crime and the state of crime in South Africa, you know, it is not a ship that is going to be turned around in a matter of days or a matter of weeks. So what we saw there, it was quite ambitious. That was mentioned by the President. But also we saw that quite a few of these were trained. But, you know, whenever you train these new boots on the ground, it takes some time for them to find their feet. It takes some time for them to really make an impact. or even though there is higher visibility on the ground. But those guys are still under mentorship. They have to be mentored by your experienced police officers for a period of time.

And it will take some time before the real impact will be felt. But that being said, we also saw that there were some other initiatives on the ground and campaigns, you know, of one of them, Operation Shanela, that seems to yield quite a lot of results. And I think it's a combination of that. And not only the members of all the new boots on the ground.

Yeah.

What didn't exist in last year, State of the Nation Address, which exists now, is the spectre of July 6th looming large of what would be the mood and tonality of the speech. And what I'm talking about there is General Infantam-Kwanaz's press briefing that took place several months after the last State of the Nation Address. Of course, the President can't ignore that it did not happen. There are two processes currently underway dealing with exactly the question around infiltration of the criminal justice system, corruption and capture of police, in particular in South Africa. And, of course, he has to address that.

What are some of the key sensitive points that you hope the President turns his attention to pertaining to what the 6th of July now means in the daily democratic lives of South Africans?

Yeah,

indeed. You know, I think the 6th of July was a watershed moment for South Africa. You know, it actually forced us face-to-face to look at the challenges in the eyes, especially the challenges pertaining to organized crime and how organized crime syndicates have infiltrated our systems, as you just mentioned. So that was a watershed moment. You know, in the past, the tactic, if I can use the tactic, of establishing a commission of inquiry was freely used by government.

And

that is partly, you know, sort of a stalling tactic, sort of a tactic that delays some proceedings and to sort of weather the storm. And then at the end of the day, after these inquiries and commissions that have been appointed, we didn't see a lot of action. So what we want to see from the President this time around is real action. You know, we cannot afford another Zondo commission with all the wonderful recommendations and none of them being implemented.

So, but we see that there was a fresh drive with the Madlanga commission, with also the mandate of the Madlanga commission, the very fact that the Madlanga commission can, while it is sitting already, recommend and refer people for criminal investigations. And we saw they did that. That indicates to us that there's some kind of urgency from the side of government in order to implement and to make work of the recommendations by not only the Madlanga commission, but also the findings of the ad hoc committee that we will receive later.

Yeah. I want to perhaps, Andrei Ruprafrou, bring into the conversation here and talk perhaps about the context that shifted in the last couple of months, particularly pertaining to the economy.

One

of those has been that we've seen a strengthening rent despite the onslaught against South Africa by the United States of America. And Prof, one has to acknowledge that we have slowing or inflation, and I think that is in part due to monetary policy instruments being used quite well. Of course, that's caused a little bit of tension between the National Treasury and the Reserve Bank. But these indicators seem to show us that there's some level of movement in the economy in the right direction.

Is

it enough?

Well, it's

encouraging. I think for the first time in

many a long

day, we can straddle off a year on a slightly upbeat note, as you quite rightly say, inflation down to just above 3%. Who would have thought that just a few years ago? Interest rates showing signs of softening, also positive. The gold price, a tour de force, $5,000 plus.

The

exchange rate doing remarkably well. Petrol price coming down. So a number of small, important victories,

but

really not – and by the way, I'm sure the present world will focus on these things, and rightly so. You know, one should talk about triumphs. Is it enough? No, of course not. I mean, the structural issues in our economy and our social economy

are

still very much part and parcel of our reality.

I

mean, these things we've just spoken about are welcome. They're not going to address unemployment. They're not going to elevate our growth rate to 3% or 4%. They're not going to reduce

quality

cap all by themselves.

So,

like in any sona,

I

think we need to see this as, in many ways, a very important ceremony, nice pomp and circumstance. The president gives kind of – it's almost like a stock-taking. Takes stock of what we achieved in the last year and what lies ahead. One only hopes that he will speak to us as leader of the country, and perhaps not as a political party, bearing in mind

municipal

elections are on the horizon. And that could in some ways

– Prof. Rukin, can

I pause you there? One of the promises that the president made in previous states of the nation, and perhaps even in the last administration, was Operation Vulindela, which was meant to reform network industries, which included Transnet, ESCOM in particular. And to an extent, SAA was inclusive of that reformation undertaking. Have they achieved that sort of reform? And are we beginning to see the economic dividend thereof? And to what extent can the president celebrate any sort of achievements tomorrow night, if any at all?

Yes,

I think it is worthwhile mentioning those. And I think we are, again, looking at some important, albeit minor, triumphs.

I

mean, I don't attempt fate, but we haven't had load shedding for quite a while. And we know from the period of load shedding, calculations showed that a phase two or phase three, stage three, perpetuated load shedding for a year could shave up to 1.5% worth of economic growth.

So

by eliminating that, let's touch wood, that's already making a positive contribution.

But

by the same token, we do see that our ports seem to be underperforming. We read about fruit exports getting lost almost or getting stuck in the ports for many a long day. So there's still lots of room for improvement. But yes, I would add these things to the list of, if not major, certainly small, important, minor triumphs.

Yeah. Councillor Ngozi, I want to bring you into the conversation here.

What's

become a reality and quite ubiquitous part of the South African life

has

been the management and living through disasters, whether it is wildfires in the Western Cape or it is severe droughts in parts of the northwestern part of the country or whether we're talking about dealing with the floods that we had in the northeastern part of the country, ravaging places like Limpopo, which, by the way, the economy depends quite heavily on agricultural output and exports in Limpopo. They've had to endure floods along with Mbumalanga and parts of KwaZulu-Natal. Disasters are no longer a thing that happens in isolation in South Africa and certainly no longer a thing that it's dealt with at a local level only. It takes a coordinated, systematic response to it.

How much airtime do you hope our conversation in the state of the nation focuses on disaster management, disaster preparedness and the road forward in terms of that?

Now,

thank you very much and

good

evening to you and good evening to the listeners at home. As you would know, that Salga was part of the stakeholders that advocated

for

the review of the disaster management system

in

the country. It led that, and as you would know, that Salga has also embarked on a benchmarking study tour

in

partnership with the National Disaster Management Center.

to

Malawi and Brazil, those are the countries that, in a way, are equivalent to South Africa in terms of the current disasters that are happening.

And

those study tours have strengthened our way to develop a local government policy position

that

we have submitted to COGTA.

And

the cabinet has adopted that in 2022. So our expectation in the state of the nation address, as we have said in the last month and the last two weeks, when disaster stroke in Mpumalanga and Limpopo, is that the president should elcalcate the implementation of our proposal that we have submitted.

that

in this instance, we want the implementation that we don't want to be reactive to disaster. We don't want disaster to strike and then we go to our communities and talk to them about what needs to happen and promise this,

art,

and that. But we want a resilient

way of

trying

to

be resilient in terms of building, in terms of advocating to our communities on how can we be proactive in terms of preventing disaster.

Yeah. And certainly, of course, we hope that there's a conversation that expands on that in the budget speech, and hopefully an increasing of the disaster management pool of funds available to local governments as well as the provinces. Unfortunately, that's all that we have time for in this evening. Prof. Andrei Ruh, thank you so much for your time. Councillor Mluleki, thank you so much for your time. And for the males, thank you so much for joining us this evening here on The Late Edition.

Thank you so much for joining us.