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President Cyril Ramaphosa delivers the State of the Nation Address in Cape Town, February 13, 2026.
Political analyst Sanusha Naidu says President Cyril Ramaphosa’s State of the Nation Address has exposed the government’s failure to implement its own plans.
She says systemic failures, weak state capacity and poor governance are hampering the delivery of basic services such as water.
Naidu says without decisive action, the country will keep repeating promises without real implementation.
“We’re looking at the Water Infrastructure Agency. There’s a whole question around, I mean, there’s a whole creation around a state property company, a transmission kind of company, state controlled, et cetera. But the challenge that they have is that the mood of that state of the nation, as much as there was a sense of optimism from some of the political parties, et cetera, the challenge that you keep coming back to is that the implementation has to now start showing some kind of traction, some kind of reflection of what’s happening.”
State of the Nation Address (SONA) 2026:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wDso0sPwTU0
