Bright future ahead for SA

RAMAPHOSA: SCEPTICAL OPTIMISM FOR YEAR 2025

- Faizel Patel

South Africans prepare for the festive holidays and to welcome a new year with sceptical optimism, President Cyril Ramaphosa is confident of new hope for 2025. In his weekly newsletter yesterday Ramaphosa said 2024 was marked by both "triumphs and struggles".

"We held our seventh successful, free and fair general elections since 1994," he said.

"Our democracy has evolved and matured.

"We have a government of national unity comprised of 10 political parties from across the political spectrum. They have agreed on three strategic priorities for this administration."

Ramaphosa also highlighted the suspension of load shedding, which many South Africans would rather want to erase from their memories as the country hit stage six rolling blackouts at times.

"The country has had over 250 days with no load shedding. This is due to a combination of increased maintenance and generation recovery by Eskom, the addition of more capacity to the grid including from renewables and the large-scale uptake of solar and battery energy solutions by households and businesses.