The diagnosis is right, but the cure is missing

WHEN President Cyril Ramaphosa unveils a new “10-Point Economic Action Plan” promising to “reignite growth,” relief should be the order of the day. But it isn’t. We've seen this movie before.

- NYANISO QWESHA | Cape Town

On paper, the plan is commendable. It correctly diagnoses South Africa's two most critical ailments, the catastrophic failure of our energy supply and the slow-motion collapse of our logistics infrastructure. Its proposed remedies, fast-tracking private investment in electricity transmission and fixing our rail and ports, are not just sound; they are the very prescriptions experts have urged for a decade. There is nothing revolutionary here. It is, in essence, a to-do list of the obvious that should have been actioned years ago.

So, what’s the problem? The doctor.

The ANC’s plan is crippled by a single, unaddressed contradiction: the party that presided over the system's decay now asks to be trusted to fix it. The issue isn’t the plan’s content, but the total lack of institutional capacity and political will to execute it.