Africa-Press – South-Africa. President Cyril Ramaphosa has poured cold water on corridor talk that things are not going smoothly in the government of national unity [GNU], reaffirming it is “here to stay”.
“We’ve been 16 months into our relationship as the GNU partners, many people thought that we would have collapsed by now. Of course we have had our own challenges but we have reconfirmed that we are here to stay.
“The GNU is going to find more and more ways to work together, strengthening our partnership, focusing on our priorities, which are economic growth, job creation, poverty and lower the cost of living — as well as strengthening the capacity of the state.”
TimesLIVE reported last week that the president had finally resolved to convene a two-day strategic session with GNU party leaders at the Cradle of Humankind west of Johannesburg — with an invitation to parties but no agenda and an order to keep it private.
Ramaphosa hailed the retreat which concluded on Monday as a success, saying the engagement had gone “exceptionally well”.
He said the meeting was meaningful, adding the leaders had spent a considerable amount of time talking about the state of the country, society, politics and international and other issues.
“We spoke about unemployment, hunger, corruption, crime and what we need to do to inject more growth and jobs into the economy.”
He added that they also reflected on the progress made by the coalition established over a year ago after the watershed May 2024 national and provincial elections, the outcome of which resulted in the formation of the GNU.
“Our transformational work is going on, there are reforms that we have embarked upon with regards to electricity, logistics, railways and ports, our visa system which is improving and, on the corruption side, the work that is being done by the special investigating unit [SIU] which is phenomenal, recovery of ill –gotten goods and money,” he said.
He added that the issue of youth unemployment had been raised, with agreement that there was a need to enhance public employment initiatives like youth employment service. The leaders also discussed what needed to be done with the troubled Sector Education and Training Authority [SETA] and whether it was achieving the set requirements.
“We also spoke about local government, the situation which is totally unsatisfactory, the service delivery challenges that people are going through. We also spoke about illegal immigrants in our country and how we have to embark on intervention initiatives that will secure work positions for South Africans.”
However, the president said there was a consensus that there were many issues the coalition needed to prioritise moving forward.
FF Plus leader Corne Mulder described the meeting as constructive.
“We had very good discussions over the past two days, we touched on various issues and set a way forward. We hope that these meetings will now happen more regularly and that the GNU is focused on the way forward.”
Rise Mzansi’s Songezo Zibi said it was “good to spend time together to get to know one another”.
“We also got to speak about the things that we cannot speak about in formal meetings. It was a good session to reflect on the last 16 months of the GNU, what has gone well and what has not gone well. Most importantly we got to speak about how to move forward in a structured way, in terms of the GNU’s overall programme, the clearing house and its terms of reference, and how to respond to some of the most topical issues that South Africans are most concerned about, like the law enforcement space with the ad hoc committee and Madlanga commission, immigration, economic growth and job creation.”
Zibi said it was crucial for the parties to work together to avoid the contestation that saw the GNU struggling to pass a budget earlier this year.
Patriotic Alliance leader Gayton McKenzie said it was “one of the best retreats” he had ever attended.
“We were straightforward, we recommitted ourselves to solidify the GNU, we agreed on a way forward, to give services to our people and ensure that the unity of the GNU is sancrosanct. The GNU is solid, very solid,” he said.
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