SONA: Ramaphosa announces R250bn investment already on a roll

President Cyril Ramaphosa told South Africans during his State of the Nation Address that R250bn worth of government’s earmarked R300bn investment in catalytic projects were already being implemented.

Ramaphosa was delivering his second State of The Nation Address for the year and the first in the sixth administration of government on Thursday evening in Parliament. The investment drive began after Ramaphosa’s first State of the Nation in 2018 and found momentum quickly.

Ramaphosa said government would continue to build a pipeline of investments, which will be showcased at the second South African Investment Conference to be held in November.

“Of the R300bn of investments announced at our inaugural Investment Conference last year, just over R250bn worth of projects has entered implementation phase,” said Ramphosa.

Ramaphosa said more still needed to be done to improve the investment climate in South Africa.

“Good progress has been made through the Public-Private Growth Initiative, which is being championed by Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, Mr Roelf Meyer and Dr Johan van Zyl,” Ramaphosa said.

He said the private sector has committed to invest R840bn in 43 projects over 19 sectors and creating 155 000 jobs in the next five years.

Regarding the infrastructure fund which he announced in the February State of The Nation, Ramaphosa said government had set aside R100bn to seed the fund.

“We are working to institutionalise the fund, which will be managed by the Development Bank of Southern Africa, with the newly configured Department of Public Works and Infrastructure playing an oversight role,” he said.

Observers, including members of the South African Reserve Bank’s monetary policy committee have pointed out that public sector investments aimed at kickstarting the economy have not yielded the desired results in recent years.