The National Education, Health and Allied Workers’ Union [NEHAWU] takes note of the presentation of the State of the Nation Address (SONA), yesterday, Thursday 12th February 2026, by the President of the Republic of South Africa, Cyril Ramaphosa.
This R7 million spectacle sees parliamentarians clothed in luxury brands and designer labels descend on the National Assembly, honourable members who have also recently received a 4% increase in their annual income. SONA has also become a platform for carefully crafted rhetoric and unrealistic target setting.
It takes place roughly a year-and-half after the 2024 National and Provincial Government elections which saw a negotiated shift and the formation of the so-called Government of National Unity (GNU). SONA was also presented under the expectation that the content would be influenced and underscored by the African National Congress Lekgotla, which took place in January 2026.
The SONA convenes during a period of momentous geopolitical shifts, in which unipolar power is decreasing and a multipolar world order replacing it. These shifts have provoked the full barbarity of the West, in particular the White House. Through devastating tariff impositions, undermining sovereignty, through military actions, fascist brow-beating in the streets of Minneapolis and attempts to literally starve the Cuban people into submission – the unhinged nature of the American administration is now visible for all to see. We therefore welcome the President’s comments on issues of international importance and solidarity.
At home, we remain in a flux of economic stagnancy and social decay. Despite a marginal increase in the GDP of the 4th quarter of 2025 and a stronger Rand, conditions on the ground affecting workers and our communities are worsening. The President’s utterance about the Social Relief of Distress (SRD) grant lifting people out of poverty is incorrect. Approximately 30.3 million South Africans (55.5% of the population) live in poverty, as defined by the national upper-bound poverty line. Of this, a total of 13.8 million people (25% of the population) experience food poverty. Unemployment, in particular of the youth, requires urgent state intervention. The President failed to use this opportunity to relay the annual fear of SRD recipients on the security and future of the grant, despite his promises. The reconfiguration of the SRD grant or, “Job Seekers” grant is a policy adopted through the Democratic Alliance. The President continues on an annual basis to renege on commitments of expanding the grant into universal income guarantee.
The African National Congress January 2026 Lekgotla, convened under the theme “A year of decisive action to fix local government, accelerate economic transformation, create jobs, deepen social justice and renew the Movement.” Unfortunately, the President’s presentation does not resonate with the outcomes of the January Lekgotla, which committed to implementing a Local Government Action Plan (LGAP), which included a comprehensive Service Delivery Acceleration Framework anchored in the District Development Model (DDM) and resourced through a “One District, One Plan”. Over and above these interventions, the ANC Lekgotla further resolved to deploy rapid-response technical teams to priority municipalities, and institute weekly monitoring of delivery performance. Priority workstreams include water reticulation, road rehabilitation, energy network stability, clean towns and cities, human settlements delivery, climate-resilient infrastructure and local job creation.
Most of our municipalities are crumbling and now face incremental and dangerous climatic disasters, floods and fires, yet the President has not considered a state-led intervention to safeguard our communities and establish a comprehensive climate resilient local government system. NEHAWU therefore urges the President to include this critical aspect in the developing White Paper on Local Government. In many of our communities, there are rising levels of malnutrition amongst infants (what the President referred to as ‘stunting’), increases in primary school drop-outs and high levels of child-headed households. Our youth from working class communities, rural and urban, matriculate under difficult conditions, we recognise the great achievement of record high matriculations (88%), however over 100 thousand matric graduates of the 2025 academic year cannot find placement in an institution of higher learning, with many that do spending a week or more sleeping on the streets. NEHAWU notes the President’s pronouncement of deploying SANDF personnel to Gauteng and the Western Cape to assist SAPS in tackling crime, violence and gangsterism. This is a measure that may curb criminal activities in our communities in the short-term, but does not address the root socio-economic and psycho-social conditions that nurture illegal and criminal activities.
Over the past year, government has been fixated with its Neoliberal reforms of creating a free market in what are public goods in which the state is rightly entitled to maintain its monopoly in order to fulfil the constitutional obligations, that are absolutely outside the narrow profit logic of the structural reforms. Thus, there has been paralysis informed by a delusion of private sector efficiency, hence we are now facing a water crisis whilst the related National Water Resource Infrastructure Agency is nowhere to be seen “unlocking much greater investment in water projects”. NEHAWU therefore challenges the logic of privatisation through Operation Vulindlela (now in Phase 2), in the context our unemployment crisis.
Key amongst our concerns of the SONA 2026 are the numerous commitments and pronouncements that the President has not adequately accounted for. During the 2025 SONA, the President pronounced that “Government will spend more than R940 billion on infrastructure over the next three years.” Of this amount approximately R375 billion was to be spent by state owned companies. What we were presented with is the complete privatisation of the remaining public entities through concessionary private sector deals in the rail, port, electricity and water sectors. The endless task-teams and endless commitments to mobilising resources to address the water crises are the same pronouncements made in 2025. In 2025, the President laid out an envisioned Infrastructure Fund which promised twelve blended finance projects worth nearly R38 billion, this plan was approved in 2024, covering water and sanitation, student accommodation, transport, health and energy, yet the President skirted these prior commitments.
During the 2025 SONA, the President committed to the establishment of the first phase of a single electronic health record, preparatory work to establish Ministerial Advisory Committees on health technologies and health care benefits, and an accreditation framework for health service providers. This commitment has been left unaccounted for. In this regard, NEHAWU acknowledges that a number of hospitals are under construction or undergoing revitalisation, these include: Limpopo Central Hospital and the Siloam District Hospital in Limpopo, the Dihlabeng Regional Hospital in Free State, the Bambisana District Hospital and Zithulele District Hospital in Eastern Cape, and the Bophelong Psychiatric Hospital in North West, our concern however is that the National Department of Health does not have a properly funded and effective System Strengthening programme aligned to the framework of the WHO’s building blocks. NEHAWU welcomes the commitment to the revitalization of Academic Hospitals across the country, but with caution. The President has indicated that all of the above commitments will ultimately be determined by the presentation and outline in the Medium-Term Budget Policy Statement (MTBPS), which takes place later this year.
Our concern is that SONA is dislocated from many of the realties faced by workers and our communities. The commitments contained in the 2026 SONA must be tested with the 2025 commitments. The establishment of endless commissions and bloated task teams will not solve the current challenges, what is required is political will and logical and developmental resourcing. The presentation of the MTBPS will therefore put the numerous commitments and promises of the President to test.
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Issued by NEHAWU Secretariat.
Zola Saphetha (General Secretary) at 082 558 5968; December Mavuso (Deputy General Secretary) at 082 558 5969; Lwazi Nkolonzi (NEHAWU National Spokesperson) at 081 558 2335 or email: lwazin@nehawu.org.za