Last week’s State of the Nation gave me a lot of hope.
I know these were just words from President Cyril Ramaphosa, but like I said before, I believe his heart is in the right place and that he genuinely wants to build a better country.
I suspect that one of his motives is business.
Like I’ve said before, Ramaphosa is a businessman, so he would have done the projections for running a country well.
And it doesn’t take an MBA to understand that a country where most
citizens are doing well, is good for business, because they will spend that money on products and services that you own.
I know there have been many criticisms of Ramaphosa’s third Sona, but I reckon he was on the right track with most of it.
For example, the National Health Insurance is something that I have encouraged on this page, since it first became clear that it may become a
reality.
It is going to irritate many South Africans, and there will be growing pains that will frustrate the rest of us, but in the end - if done properly - I see a system where we all have access to superior medical care.
This is something that we all deserve and which is long overdue.
Ramphosa’s goals with regard to job creation, social cohesion and safer communities are all things that resonate with me strongly and I want to help him achieve these things.
I think it is all our duty to help with every aspect of his goals, or at least the ones we agree with.
We have become a nation of complacent complainers, who leave too much of government’s duties up to government alone.
But like the president said, we have many severe challenges, of which a stagnating economy is chief among them.
Now while that sounds like a massive task that no individual can have an impact on, the truth is we can have an effect as a
collective.
However, the big challenge which I believe required a lot more attention from the president, is our battle against crime.
As I pointed out previously, our challenges cannot be seen in isolation.
So of course the slowing economy, resulting unemployment - especially among our youth - and infrastructure problems all play a huge role and must be tackled together to address crime.
It’s the thing that I believe gets most South Africans down and discouraged.
I believe that most of us will be able to live with most of the challenges we are facing as a nation, if only we could do so without the fear of terrible harm coming to us and our families.
While the issues the president plans to address are important, I believe much more attention should be paid to the critical ones that result in the crime that traumatises us as a nation.
And this is where the disconnect between us and our leaders come into play.
Because, for as long as ministers and MPs continue to live in secure homes, with electric fences and bodyguards paid for by us, the taxpayer, they will never fully understand the need for this.
Crime will become priority for them only if and when they are threatened by it on a daily basis.
Ramaphosa wants to halve the country’s violent crime rate, but our crime rate is dozens of times above what any of us would like it to be.
So half is just not enough.
He will need to aim a whole lot higher than that.