President Cyril Ramaphosa is set to deliver South Africa\u2019s annual State of the Nation address tomorrow night in Cape Town. And Africa Check will fact-check the claims he makes, live.<\/p>\n
Last year we found Ramaphosa\u2019s claims to be mostly correct (he got two wrong<\/a>). But what about the promises he made? Have they been kept?<\/p>\n Here we follow up on four of his promises on summits, youth employment, schools and HIV treatment.<\/p>\n Jobs summit<\/strong><\/p>\n The\u00a02018 Jobs Summit<\/a>\u00a0was held on 4 and 5 October 2018.<\/p>\n Ramaphosa gave the\u00a0opening address<\/a>, where he announced a \u201cpresidential jobs committee\u201d would make sure the measures agreed to at the summit were properly carried out.\u00a0\u2013 Naphtali Khumalo<\/i><\/p>\n Youth employment<\/strong><\/p>\n The 2018 State of the Nation address was delivered on 16 February 2018.<\/p>\n The\u00a0Youth Employment Service<\/a>\u00a0was officially\u00a0launched on 27 March \u00a02018<\/a>. It aims to give more than a million young South Africans paid work experience over the next three years.<\/p>\n The initiative is a partnership between the government, business, labour and civil society. It \u00a0will also provide job placements and training for people aged 18 to 35.<\/p>\n According to the website,\u00a0319 companies have registered<\/a>\u00a0for the initiative to date, with just 6,939 \u201cwork experiences\u201d committed. \u00a0\u2013 Naphtali Khumalo<\/i><\/p>\n Education<\/strong><\/p>\n The department of basic education replaces unsafe and \u201cinappropriate\u201d school structures under the\u00a0Accelerated Schools Infrastructure Delivery Initiative<\/a>\u00a0(Asidi).<\/p>\n The initiative started in 2011 and identified\u00a0496<\/a>\u00a0schools as \u201cinappropriate structures\u201d. These included schools built from mud.<\/p>\n All the schools should have been replaced by March 2014.<\/p>\n Programme yet to meet targets<\/strong><\/p>\n In his 2018 State of the Nation address, Ramaphosa updated the country on the progress of Asidi. He said \u201cat least 187 schools\u201d had been completed.<\/p>\n He\u00a0promised<\/a>\u00a0that the programme \u201cwill complete all outstanding projects by the end of the next financial year\u201d \u2013 31 March 2019.<\/p>\n The basic education department\u2019s\u00a0most recent data<\/a>\u00a0shows that 205 schools have been completed under Asidi. This is less than half the original target.<\/p>\n The remaining schools will take years to replace, according to the department\u2019s\u00a0performance plan<\/a>. Fifty schools are to be built in the 2018\/19 financial year, followed by 17 in 2019\/20 and 15 in 2020\/21.\u00a0\u2013 Cayley Clifford<\/i><\/p>\n Health<\/strong><\/p>\n Ramaphosa made his commitment at the end of the 2017\/18 financial year. That year, the department of health reported that an estimated\u00a04,189,070<\/a>\u00a0people were on antiretroviral treatment.<\/p>\n The department\u2019s latest data is from June 2018. It shows that\u00a04,224,982<\/a>\u00a0people were then on antiretroviral treatment \u2013 an increase of just 35,912 people.<\/p>\n Department targets differ from promise<\/strong><\/p>\n The number of people on treatment would need to increase to close 6.2 million by December 2020. But planning estimates from the health department suggest that the promise might be ambitious.<\/p>\n The department\u2019s performance plan puts its target at\u00a06,100,000<\/a>\u00a0people on treatment by March 2021. At the current rate, Ramaphosa\u2019s promise may not be kept.\u00a0\u2013 Lloyd Hazvineyi<\/i><\/p>\n This report was written by Africa Check, a non-partisan fact-checking organisation. View the original piece on their website<\/a><\/strong>.<\/em><\/p>\n
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