SONA 2024 | Steenhuisen: We don't expect much

PARLIAMENT - With the general election approaching, opposition parties are using the State of the Nation Address to critique the 6th administration.

READ: SONA 2024 | What to expect from President Ramaphosa

Democratic Alliance leader John Steenhuisen says this evening's address is another opportunity for President Cyril Ramaphosa to make more empty promises.

He said, "I want to make it clear, we did give him the benefit of the doubt in the beginning, you may recall, and we said that we really hoped that the new dawn was gonna turn into something, but the reality is it's been another five years added onto the nine wasted years before."

"Every single one of the promises made by the president have not come to fruition, crime is up, unemployment is up, load shedding is the worst it's ever been before."

"We are lower on the corruption index than we've ever been before. So life has gone from bad to worse under Cyril Ramaphosa, so we not expecting much from the SONA, and I don't think that anyone's gonna take what the president says tonight very very seriously, especially given the fact that he's clearly gonna make some populous promises."

"But there's a budget deficit of 6-percent, how is he gonna fund these things. Im sure we gonna hear bullet trains, we gonna here all these things that are promises, but the reality is, this is the last SONA, delivered by an ANC president, and it think that's going to be the interesting aspect of tonight's SONA."