Once upon a time – long, long ago – in a faraway land, there was a small State-funded village in a magical kingdom.

Just in case you were wondering, this is considered the most popular and most famous fairy-tale story starter, but the phrase ‘State-funded’ is my addition.

In less than 48 hours since my visit to the Museum of Communism, in the Czech Republic, South Africa had both lost and gained a President, with the new incumbent delivering his first State of the National Address (Sona). What resonates with me is that present-day South Africa has parallels with the Communism Museum, but then in reverse.

This brings me to the 5 308-word Sona. Its delivery reminded me of what a wise old man once told me at the start of my working career, which coincided with the dawn of the then ‘new South Africa’. I was still most impressionable, while the old sage was less so. After yet another emotive speech, I eagerly explored its message. Unimpressed, the wise old man remarked that listening to these speeches was similar to visiting a masseuse: “It gives you a warm and fuzzy feeling, but, within a few hours of its completion, the effects fade and you are in dire need of another speech.”

In a word, the address was ‘populist’, with contradictory and exclusive elements. We are supposedly “a nation at one”, but distinction was made with respect to demographics. We were told that “expropriation without compensation should be implemented in a way that increases agricultural production, improves food security and ensures that the land is returned to those from whom it was taken under colonialism and apartheid”. Yet no reference was made to the scourge of farm murders. Does silence mean that the murders are condoned? Not a single reference to farm murders. Nor was there mention of the fact that the demographic of preference already owns more than half of all agricultural land in two of South Africa’s most fertile provinces: KwaZulu-Natal (74%) and Limpopo (52%).

President Cyril Ramaphosa’s statement that “expropriation without compensation should be implemented in a way that increases agricultural production, improves food security” ignores two critical aspects, namely that agricultural land is heavily bonded by financial institutions and that economies of scale are required to render farming economically viable.

Out of left field – which is American English for ‘unexpectedly’, ‘odd’ or ‘strange’ – is Ramaphosa’s remark that “we need to see mining as a sunrise industry”. For the uninitiated, a ‘sunrise industry’ is one that is considered new or relatively new, is growing fast and is expected to become important in the future. Internationally, sunrise industries include hydrogen fuel production, the petrochemicals industry, food processing and space tourism, but not mining. The mining sector might be many things but a ‘sunrise industry’ – it ain’t.

As for ‘tax’, it was mentioned only four times, when the President spoke about the Employment Tax Incentive. No reference at all was made to tax revenue.

Ramaphosa’s address was also silent on another scourge – de-industrialisation. There was, however, a single reference to industrialisation, when the President said: “The process of industrialisation must be underpinned by transformation.”

There is no denying that South Africa has been turned into a welfare State, with “government’s free basic services programme currently [supporting] more than 3.5-million indigent households” and “more than 17-million social grants [being] paid each month, benefiting nearly a third of the population”. This begs the question of its sustainability, considering that the number of beneficiaries significantly exceeds the number of taxpayers.

Unsurprisingly, this year’s Sona lacked in detail – the how’s and the when’s.
As the Communism Museum reminds me with the proverbial phrase from the book of Hosea: “They that sow the wind, shall reap the whirlwind.”