South Africans are being bullied by corruption, crime, and a government that refuses to act decisively. It’s time to demand action from the government. 

President Ramaphosa’s 2025 State of the Nation Address (SONA) was one of the longest and most uninspiring speeches in recent memory, filled with recycled promises and little substance. How are we expected to believe a President who has not delivered in the past?

OUTA highlighted some concerns to which the SONA provided no solutions: 

• Broken infrastructure: The President spoke of fixing rail, ports, and hospitals, but these should not have been broken in the first place.

• Municipal failure: Decades of decline continue, despite repeated promises to address water security and service delivery. Local governments are dysfunctional, and it remains to be seen if the latest promises to ring-fence service utilities will be kept.

• Illicit trade: Claims that SARS is tackling the illicit tobacco trade are misleading – illegal cigarettes still outsell legal ones.

• Lack of anti-corruption action: The Zondo Commission’s recommendations remain largely unimplemented three years later, with few prosecutions or asset seizures.

• Organised crime flourishes: Syndicates control key industries, yet there is little action against these criminal networks.

• State capture recovery falls short: Only R10 billion – a tiny fraction of the R500 billion lost – has been recovered thus far.  

• Whistleblower protection delayed: The promise to implement a bill to address whistleblower protection remains stalled, despite the deadly risks whistleblowers face.

• Weak law enforcement: Little was said about meaningfully allocating resources to upskill the criminal justice system. Promises of a digital forensics lab and fully resourced IDAC sound good, but where’s the commitment?

• Public procurement remains corrupt: The Public Procurement Act has still not been implemented to curb the manipulation of state contracts, with no real reform in sight.

South Africans are tired of hearing the same promises year after year while the country’s decline continues. OUTA will continue to hold the government accountable and push for real change. We want transparency, accountability, and decisive action against corruption.

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