{"id":846925,"date":"2026-01-02T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-01-02T10:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=846925"},"modified":"2026-01-02T11:28:46","modified_gmt":"2026-01-02T09:28:46","slug":"ramaphosa-sends-an-important-message-to-south-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/846925\/ramaphosa-sends-an-important-message-to-south-africa\/","title":{"rendered":"Ramaphosa sends an important message to South Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Following a challenging 2025, President Cyril Ramaphosa has delivered a message of hope for 2026, optimistic that the nation, including its economy, is heading in the right direction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In his 2026 New Year’s Message, the president acknowledged the difficulties that South Africans faced over the past year. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This includes unemployment, inequality, poverty, high cost of living, gangsterism, gender-based violence and femicide, and service delivery failures. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

“I acknowledge these difficulties plainly and give assurance that your struggles are known and understood. We are continuing to take a variety of actions to address these challenges,” he said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Our success in addressing these challenges includes working together in partnership between the government, business, labour, civil society, and every citizen committed to the future of our country.” <\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, the president highlighted several improvements for the nation’s economy, including easing inflation, a strengthening rand, and a credit rating upgrade for the first time in two decades. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He said that the ratings upgrade will allow the government to mobilise funding for infrastructure investment and social development at lower rates. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The president also noted that the structural transformation programme, which started five years ago, is also showing positive progress. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This includes Eskom’s continued signs of progress, with the state-owned company delivering over R20 billion in profits in its latest financials and avoiding load shedding for several months. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The nation’s rail and port networks are also showing signs of progress, enabling an improved flow of goods. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Outlook for 2026 <\/h2>\n\n\n
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Looking ahead, the president said that infrastructure is one of the nation’s key priorities, with over R1 trillion budgeted for infrastructure development over the next three years. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The president said that the infrastructure budget has catalysed the revitalisation of South Africa’s roads, ports, rail, energy and water systems. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He added that the government has worked with the private sector to establish the Youth Employment Service.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This initiative has created more than 200,000 work experience opportunities for young unemployed South Africans, with the expectation that this number will increase in the coming period.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He added that the ongoing improvement of the business environment is also contributing to economic growth and job creation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Rooting out corruption is our overriding priority. Specialised task teams have made breakthroughs against illegal mining, kidnapping, economic infrastructure crimes and construction site extortion,” he said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

“We are determined to continue to take decisive steps to clean up our law enforcement agencies.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The recommendations of the Madlanga Commission will then be implemented to enhance reforms needed to reposition the South African Police Service (SAPS) and other law enforcement bodies. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

While it faced extreme criticism, Ramaphosa also highlighted the launch of the National Dialogue, which included delegates from across society. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The National Dialogue is set to continue into 2026, with a Steering Committee comprising community-based representatives that will lead the national consultations over the year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Despite the challenges we face, our country is getting stronger, our economy is improving. As we prepare to welcome a new year, let us remain united to build the South Africa of our dreams.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ramaphosa is not alone in his optimism, with many in the financial services sector seeing green shoots for South Africa. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The rand<\/a> is expected to remain relatively strong against the US dollar amid local improvements, such as the credit rating upgrade and interest rate cuts in the US. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Following 150 basis points worth of cuts from the South African Reserve Bank (SARB), further interest rate cuts are also forecast in 2026 <\/a>amid low inflation levels. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The economy is also expected to grow marginally, with the SARB forecasting 1.4% growth – up from an estimated 1.2% for 2025. <\/p>\n\n\n\n


<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

President Cyril Ramaphosa has highlighted the nation’s plans for 2026, with several signs of improvement for the country. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":95,"featured_media":839740,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[20265],"class_list":["post-846925","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-government","tag-presidency"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/846925","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/95"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=846925"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/846925\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":846930,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/846925\/revisions\/846930"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/839740"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=846925"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=846925"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=846925"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}