President Jacob Zuma’s second State of the Nation address next Friday will present him with tough questions on jobs and his commitment to HIV prevention.
Coming under stark scrutiny will be the commitments he made in his address last June to the creation of 500 000 jobs by the end of December 2009, the training lay-off scheme meant to help reduce job losses and the country’s rate of HIV infection.
Having distributed less than R10-million of its R2,4-billion fund, the lay-off scheme has largely failed so far. Department of labour director general Jimmy Manyi said the scheme was in a state of “emergency”. It is expected to distribute the entire fund by April.
The idea was to reskill workers facing retrenchment and pay them a training allowance equal to 50% of their basic salary, to a maximum of R6239 a month, guaranteed for three months. One million jobs were lost in the first three-quarters of 2009 and companies are still continuing to retrench workers.
Household debt stood at 47,1% of gross domestic product in November last year and 58% of credit-active consumers were in arrears, according to the Reserve Bank. That amounts to 10-million consumers. An average of 9 000 people apply for debt counselling every month, according to figures provided by debt management company Debtbusters last month.
Said the Democratic Alliance’s parliamentary leader Athol Trollip: “I hope the president has learned that making promises [on which] you cannot deliver backfires.”
Trollip said Zuma’s decision to deliver the address on the anniversary of Nelson Mandela’s release from prison was a “plain and obvious” attempt to “bolster his image” using Mandela’s legacy, while at the same time avoiding issues that are affecting the nation.
The presidency said Zuma chose February 11 in an attempt to bring all South Africans together to mark the “defining moment” in the country’s history when Mandela was released 20 years ago.
For the first time the president will deliver the State of the Nation address in the evening — 7pm — to afford all South Africans, especially the workers, an opportunity to watch the proceedings in their homes after hours, said the presidency.
Professor Tinyiko Maluleke, director of research at Unisa, expressed irritation at the evening presentation. “That is not the workers’ greatest need. Ordinary people need food and jobs. Do not give them prime-time viewing of the State of the Nation address [instead],” he said.
“We want to hear the president talking about HIV/Aids,” Trollip said, after Zuma’s admission this week that he fathered a child out of wedlock. “That is going to be a difficult egg dance for him.”
Zuma will also have to be creative on state-owned enterprises, which have been giving both Minister of Public Enterprises Barbara Hogan and Parliament a headache recently, as well as costing the taxpayer millions of rands.
Corruption, education, service delivery and poverty alleviation feature prominently on the list of things the DA and the Congress of the People would like to hear in the president’s speech.