PRESIDENT RAMAPHOSA LAUDS SPRINGBOKS’ HISTORIC RUGBY WORLD CUP VICTORY

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On behalf of the nation, President Cyril Ramaphosa commends the Springboks on their Rugby World Cup 2023 victory over New Zealand which makes South Africa the first country to win this championship four times.

The President offers his congratulations to the team who performed at the Stade de France this evening, Saturday, 28 October 2023, as well as coaching team, the broader squad and the team management and technical and support staff.

The President said: “Stronger Together is a belief that came to life for Springbok supporters all around our country and continent, and the world.

“Sport has the power to transform the lives and lift the spirits of entire nations. Tonight, Siya Kolisi and the 2023 World Cup champions have gifted us an extraordinary, inspired and inspiring national achievement that lifts our hearts and hoists our Flag even higher.”

President Ramaphosa offers his congratulations to New Zealand for a hard-fought World Cup campaign that made the All Blacks deserving finalists.

FROM THE DESK OF THE PRESIDENT

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                                                                   NEW INVESTMENTS TO PROPEL OUR DIGITAL ECONOMY FORWARD

 

Dear Fellow South African,

The 5th South Africa Investment Conference, which was held in Johannesburg last week, provided a huge boost to the country’s digital economy.

In addition to significant investment commitments in data and telecommunications infrastructure, there were also announcements about investments in the mining, manufacturing, energy, property, logistics and food and beverages sectors.

These announcements took the total amount of investment commitments made over the first five years of our investment drive to over R1.5 trillion. This exceeds the target of R1.2 trillion we set in 2018.

While all these investments contribute to economic growth and job creation, the investments in the digital economy will, in addition, propel our country into a new era of innovation and progress. Not only is the digital economy important for growth, but it is also vital to the provision of key services such as education, social services and health care.

South Africa already has among the highest rates of internet penetration in Africa. According to Statistics South Africa’s 2021 General Household Survey, more than three quarters of households have internet access, 97% of all households have at least one mobile phone, and most people use mobile phones to get online. This includes nearly 60 per cent of rural households.

Several recent tech surveys indicate that higher speeds and improved mobile and fibre infrastructure are helping to narrow the digital divide. This is the result of stepped-up investment in the digital economy in recent years.

Since the first South Africa Investment Conference in 2018, investments in digital economy have grown exponentially. Over the past five years, we have seen total investment commitments of R200 billion in our country’s telecommunications network by Vodacom, MTN, Telkom, Rain and Liquid Telecom.

Faster fibre and 5G rollout makes our economy more competitive as more connectivity solutions help businesses emerge and expand.

The Equiano subsea cable announced at the 3rd South Africa Investment Conference in 2020 was launched by Google last year. We are seeing more investment in data centres. In addition to the network providers, Amazon Web Services, Teraco and Dimension Data have made investment commitments of R21 billion in the past five years. Amazon Web Services plans to grow its investment with a further R30 billion in the next six years.

In 2021 Vantage Data Centers, a US-based company, announced plans to build its first African campus in Johannesburg. It said that it saw Johannesburg as “the data centre hub for sub-Saharan Africa due to its strategic location, IT ecosystem, fibre connectivity and availability of renewable energy”.

According to a recent report on Africa’s Data Centre Market, South Africa is fast becoming a hub for cloud hosting, with the manufacturing, financial services and health care sectors among the major data centre investors. The report further notes that undersea cables are supporting the growth of the local data centre market.

To take advantage of this inward investment and see it increase, we have to urgently resolve the electricity crisis and the theft and destruction of ICT infrastructure.

These were among the issues raised by investors and mobile network operators at this year’s investment conference. We are working with business and other social partners to address these challenges and improve the operating environment.

We are also forging ahead with the structural reforms that are so critical to efforts to improve our economic competitiveness. For example, the conclusion last year of the first high-demand spectrum auction in over a decade will substantially increase connectivity and lower the costs of both voice and data services.

Just two weeks ago, the Minister of Communications and Digital Technologies published the Rapid Deployment Policy, which will help to accelerate the deployment of telecommunications infrastructure.

To boost the job creation potential of these investments, the National Skills Fund will soon launch a new model for demand-led skills development, which will provide R800 million to fund training for unemployed young people in digital skills.

As we look to foster increased investment over the next five years, as the structural reform process continues to gather pace and as measures to end the energy crisis bear fruit, we will be able to further position ourselves at the forefront of the digital economy in Africa.

 

With best regards,

 

 

President Ramaphosa

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TIMULATING GROWTH FROM THE BOTTOM UP

 

Dear Fellow South African,

We have reached the end of Human Rights Month.

It is a time in which we reflect on the sacrifices that were made in the struggle for freedom, but also on the progress we have made in advancing the human rights of all.

The right to social security is explicit in the Bill of Rights. This is an approach that recognises that social security is essential to other rights, including the right to dignity.

It is this right that has underpinned the progressive expansion of South Africa’s social protection system over the past three decades.

In 1999 just over 2.5 million people were receiving social grants. Today that number has increased to over 18 million people.

In addition, more than two million indigent households also receive free basic water, basic electricity and solid waste removal services as part of this government’s commitment to free basic services for the poor.

Expanding the social wage is not simply an indication that more people need grants today than before, as some have tried to suggest.

In the past, many of the poor, including working age adults who are unemployed, simply did not receive any support.

The Social Relief of Distress Grant that was introduced in 2020 in response to the coronavirus pandemic has reached more than 11 million people at its peak, and has lifted millions of people out of food poverty. According to research approximately

50 per cent of the purchases made by SRD grant recipients are groceries.

Social grants also act as a stimulus for the economy as a whole, increase spending in townships and rural areas, and improve employment outcomes.

An interview-based study by the University of Johannesburg of informal traders in the Johannesburg CBD, Orange Farm, Mthatha, Mqanduli and Warwick Junction in Durban, found that the SRD Grant stimulated customer spending, provided capital to purchase stock, and enabled the new businesses to be initiated.

Informal traders and SRD grant recipients in Philippi in the Western Cape also told researchers that it had a positive impact on their businesses.

According to another recent study by researchers at the University of Cape Town the SRD grant also increased the probability of recipients searching for jobs and gaining employment.

Similarly, many participants in the Presidential Employment Stimulus Initiative (PESI) have gone on to find work after they have completed the programme. The school assistants programme has provided opportunities for 750,000 young people to date in over 22,000 schools, reaching every corner of the country.

Over 72 per cent of participants in the PESI said that having gained their first work experience, the programme helped them to gain a foothold in the labour market thereafter.

In all of these ways, South Africa’s world-renowned social protection system provides important benefits for many in our society, not only those who receive social grants.

It supports economic growth from the bottom up, enables business activity, and strengthens social solidarity and stability. It is one of the greatest achievements of our democratic society, and one that we should all be proud of.

The SRD alone represents a significant step in our commitment to provide a minimum level of support below which no South African should fall.

As I said in the State of the Nation Address last month, we are working on options to provide basic income support for the unemployed, within our fiscal constraints, beyond the expiry of the SRD Grant in April next year.

If the focus of our struggle for liberation was to end apartheid and achieve political freedom, the focus of our efforts now must be to address inequality and ensure that every South African enjoys the fruits of democracy.

It is now well recognised that inequality constrains growth, and that growth which takes place in unequal societies tends to reproduce those patterns of inequality.

This is why our economic policy is guided by the need on the one hand to implement structural reforms to stimulate growth and enhance our economic competitiveness, while on the other hand expanding social protection and public employment and supporting the social wage.

We cannot have one without the other, and we are making steady progress on both.

With best regards,

 

 
President Cyril Ramaphosa