{"id":95792,"date":"2026-02-12T16:47:40","date_gmt":"2026-02-12T16:47:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/eff-expresses-pessimism-ahead-of-ramaphosas-sona"},"modified":"2026-02-12T18:24:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-12T18:24:07","slug":"eff-expresses-pessimism-ahead-of-ramaphosas-sona","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/eff-expresses-pessimism-ahead-of-ramaphosas-sona","title":{"rendered":"EFF expresses pessimism ahead of Ramaphosa\u2019s SONA"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #ff6600\"><strong>Africa-Press &#8211; South-Africa. <\/strong><\/span>All eyes will be on President Cyril Ramaphosa when he delivers his State of the Nation Address (SONA) on Thursday evening at the Cape Town City Hall.<\/p>\n<p>While the venue will be a hive of activity and fanfare in the hours leading up to his address, the opposition Economic Freedom Fighters(EFF) is not optimistic. This will be Ramaphosa\u2019s second SONA as head of the Government of National Unity (GNU).<\/p>\n<p>EFF Treasurer-General Omphile Maotwe says the party has little hope that the address will provide solutions to South Africa\u2019s slow economic growth. Maotwe stated that Ramaphosa has failed to grow the economy and implement undertakings made in previous SONAs.<\/p>\n<p>Furthermore, Maotwe gave Ramaphosa\u2019s GNU a failing grade, saying it has not addressed systemic challenges such as unemployment, which in turn fuels other social ills like crime.<\/p>\n<p><strong>For More News And Analysis About <span style=\"color: #ff6600\">South-Africa<\/span> Follow <span style=\"color: #ff6600\">Africa-Press<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Africa-Press &#8211; South-Africa. All eyes will be on President Cyril Ramaphosa when he delivers his State of the Nation Address (SONA) on Thursday evening at the Cape Town City Hall. While the venue will be a hive of activity and fanfare in the hours leading up to his address, the opposition Economic Freedom Fighters(EFF) is [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":95791,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,12],"tags":[275],"class_list":["post-95792","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-policy","tag-south-africa-2"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.1 (Yoast SEO v27.0) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>EFF expresses pessimism ahead of Ramaphosa\u2019s SONA - South Africa<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"All eyes will be on President Cyril Ramaphosa when he delivers his State of the Nation Address (SONA) on Thursday evenin ...\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/eff-expresses-pessimism-ahead-of-ramaphosas-sona\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"EFF expresses pessimism ahead of Ramaphosa\u2019s SONA\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"All eyes will be on President Cyril Ramaphosa when he delivers his State of the Nation Address (SONA) on Thursday evenin ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/eff-expresses-pessimism-ahead-of-ramaphosas-sona\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"South Africa\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/AfricaPressTunisiaa\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-02-12T16:47:40+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2026-02-12T18:24:07+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/sites\/31\/2026\/02\/sm_1770907992.398417.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"630\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/eff-expresses-pessimism-ahead-of-ramaphosas-sona#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/eff-expresses-pessimism-ahead-of-ramaphosas-sona\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"cfeditoren\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb\"},\"headline\":\"EFF expresses pessimism ahead of Ramaphosa\u2019s SONA\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-02-12T16:47:40+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2026-02-12T18:24:07+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/eff-expresses-pessimism-ahead-of-ramaphosas-sona\"},\"wordCount\":159,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/eff-expresses-pessimism-ahead-of-ramaphosas-sona#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/sites\/31\/2026\/02\/sm_1770907992.398417.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"South-Africa\"],\"articleSection\":[\"all news\",\"policy\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/eff-expresses-pessimism-ahead-of-ramaphosas-sona#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/eff-expresses-pessimism-ahead-of-ramaphosas-sona\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/eff-expresses-pessimism-ahead-of-ramaphosas-sona\",\"name\":\"EFF expresses pessimism ahead of Ramaphosa\u2019s SONA - 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