10 questions MPs should ask the President in his SONA reply

The Institute for Economic Justice (IEJ) issued a statement criticizing President Ramaphosa's State of the Nation Address (SONA) for lacking concrete plans to address South Africa's economic and social crises. The IEJ proposes ten specific questions for Members of Parliament to ask the President, focusing on social grants, public infrastructure, the Just Energy Transition, and the mobilization of domestic resources to realize constitutional rights.

• The IEJ argues that President Ramaphosa's SONA understated the failures of post-apartheid administrations, noting that while peer nations grew at an average rate of 4.07% between 1994 and 2022, South Africa's GDP per capita grew by an annual average of only 1.2%. The document highlights severe social distress, stating that 62.6% of South Africans live in poverty, 66.7% cannot afford a healthy diet, and over 11 million people are unemployed.
• The IEJ expresses concern over the Social Relief of Distress (SRD) grant, noting it has remained at R350 since 2020 and is scheduled to expire in March 2025. The number of beneficiaries fell from 11 million in 2022 to 8.5 million in 2023, despite approximately 16 million eligible beneficiaries, which the IEJ attributes to "deliberate barriers to access" to maintain a lower budget.
• The document criticizes the National Treasury for "budget butchery" and aggressive cuts that hinder public services. Specifically, it cites R10 billion and R2 billion cuts from healthcare and education spending respectively in the 2023 Medium Term Budget Policy Statement (MTBPS), and notes that Early Childhood Care funding has been inadequate at R17 per eligible child per day since 2019.
• Regarding the Just Energy Transition, the IEJ warns that relying on private sector finance and Independent Power Producers (IPPs) risks increasing end-user fees and marginalizing those unable to afford private services. While the President cited bringing over 2,500MW of solar and wind power to the grid, the IEJ argues this narrow focus excludes developmental industrial finance for local renewables energy manufacturing.
• The IEJ calls for the government to utilize the Gold and Foreign Exchange Contingency Reserve Account (GFECRA), an almost R500 billion fund held by the South African Reserve Bank (SARB), to resource policy priorities such as expanding the SRD grant and supporting capital expenditure.

APA

Institute for Economic Justice (2024). 10 questions MPs should ask the President in his SONA reply. https://iej.org.za/press-room/statements/10-questions-mps-should-ask-the-president-in-his-sona-reply/

Chicago

Institute for Economic Justice. 10 questions MPs should ask the President in his SONA reply. 2024. https://iej.org.za/press-room/statements/10-questions-mps-should-ask-the-president-in-his-sona-reply/.

Wikipedia

{{cite press release |author=Institute for Economic Justice |title=10 questions MPs should ask the President in his SONA reply |date=12 February 2024 |url=https://iej.org.za/press-room/statements/10-questions-mps-should-ask-the-president-in-his-sona-reply/ |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@misc{instituteforeconomicjustice2024questions, author = {{Institute for Economic Justice}}, title = {{10 questions MPs should ask the President in his SONA reply}}, publisher = {Institute for Economic Justice}, year = {2024}, month = feb, url = {https://iej.org.za/press-room/statements/10-questions-mps-should-ask-the-president-in-his-sona-reply/}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }