President Cyril Ramaphosa delivers his fourth SONA amid a deepening crisis at Eskom, a stalled economy and high unemployment.
Parliament - President Cyril Ramaphosa delivers his fourth state of the nation address on Thursday amid a deepening crisis at Eskom, a stalled economy and high unemployment, and nothing suggests there is a fresh, consensual corrective to any of these, a fortnight shy of another Moody's review.
The Congress of South African Trade Unions on Wednesday said it had hoped the president would be in a position to announce an accord on its proposal for the Public Investment Corporation to avail funds to reduce Eskom's debt by R250 billion. In the absence of that, it expects him to "highlight progress government has made with regards to halting the crisis at Eskom and what measures are being undertaken to save it".
Cosatu is not alone in this, but its hopes of an agreement for the PIC to dip into the Government Employee Pension Fund have predictably met a wall of opposition. However, with public enterprises minister Pravin Gordhan seemingly in favour, the veto here lies with finance minister Tito Mboweni, a cabinet colleague less convinced of giving the state a leading role in the economy.
In its SONA wish list, Cosatu called for a vision of "state-led economic growth" and a policy of zero job losses, a vision that places it at odds with the philosophy of Mboweni, who stated repeatedly that if he had his way, South African Airways would have been shut down to relieve the state of one drain on its coffers.
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